


So Once Was I

by Nightfoot



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Horror, Paranormal Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfoot/pseuds/Nightfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brave Vesperia takes on their latest mission: investigating a haunted mansion near Dahngrest and getting to the bottom of its paranormal activity. They aren't scared of spooks, but what they find there is far more dangerous than a bump in the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Empty House

_Listen, my love, as you pass by_

_As you are now, so once was I_

_As I am now, so soon shall you be_

_So come along, and follow me_

With a creak, the door to Brave Vesperia's main office eased open. Yuri looked up from the newspaper, reminding himself to fix that damn door.

"Hello?" the guest looked around the dimly lit front room, eyes landing on Yuri. "This is Brave Vesperia, right?"

Before Yuri could answer, Karol ran in from the backroom. "That's right! We are Brave Vesperia!" Even after two years on the job, Karol still got excited when they got new missions. "Sorry," he said while lighting a gas lamp on the desk. "We've only just opened."

The potential client was a young man with blond hair matted down by the morning rain. He ignored the coat rack by the door and kept his dripping leather jacket on as he stood in the middle of the room, feet close together, eyes darting around the room. Yuri had put off giving the walls a fresh coat of paint for months, and now wondered if his procrastination was going to cost them a client.

"That's fine," the man said. "I wasn't even sure if you were open yet, but I wanted to come first thing in the morning. I've meant to come for the past few days, but when I let myself put it off, I always chicken out."

Yuri left his half-eaten toast on the table in the corner, because this sounded interesting. He leaned against the solid wooden desk while Karol tried to look professional behind it. The eagerness on his face wasn't quite the confident gravitas of the Don, but their client was spending more time examining the puddle he made on the floor than Karol so it didn't seem to matter.

"My name is Pavel Novak. I have a… monster problem, I think. Or, something like that. I, uh, I actually already went to the Hunting Blades but when I explained the issue, they laughed me out. I thought I might need a more specialized guild for this kind of thing, but I don't think there are any guilds that do this, and I thought… well, Brave Vesperia does anything, right?"

"Just what kind of monster problem are you talking about?" Yuri asked.

"It's…" he glanced between Yuri and Karol, daring them to laugh. "Ghosts. You see, I… there's this house I inherited from my great-uncle who recently died. I spent the night there last month because I was going to do some renovations and then sell it, but…" he shuddered. "There's something in that house. I kept hearing noises in the night and I had the most unsettled feeling. The Hunting Blades told me I was just paranoid and not to bother them about the sound of a house settling, but I really don't think that's what it was." He gave Karol a pleading look. "Please, you have to believe me. The one night I spent there freaked me out so badly I've been too afraid to go back. That house is haunted, I'm sure of it, and I can't do anything with it until this is taken care of. I'm not crazy; I really did feel something there!"

Yuri held up a hand. "Slow down. We believe you." He might have had more trouble believing this tale of ghosts and haunted houses if he hadn't spent time on a ghost ship.

Relief spread across Pavel's face. "You do?"

"Yeah, of course," Karol said. "So, you want us to take care of the ghosts?"

"If you could," Pavel said, clearly more relaxed now that he knew he wouldn't be laughed out. "I don't know if there's anything you can do about ghosts, but I thought I might as well ask."

"We don't have a lot of experience as ghost hunters," Yuri said, "but we've dealt with them before. It shouldn't be a problem."

"Thank you! I don't have a lot of money now, but if you take care of this problem, I'll give you ten percent of the sale of the house. Is that all right?"

Karol nodded. "Yeah, that'll be more than enough. We'll head over today and check it out. Can you tell us about the history of the house?"

"Um, yes." Pavel crossed his arms and shifted his weight from foot to foot. "My grandfather's sister, Melanie, married Cyril Danton about fifty years ago. Cyril's father had made a fortune as a merchant, but he died young and left his fortune to Cyril, who built a large mansion a few miles south of Dahngrest. It was a wedding gift to Melanie, but only a few months after they moved in, she fell ill. Melanie died and Cyril was devastated. He cut himself off from everyone, only keeping as many servants around as he needed to maintain the house. He eventually fired even those, so it was just him out there all alone. The only reason we found out he was dead was because a tax collector went to find out why he hadn't paid taxes in a few months. They found his body in the basement. Apparently he died of heart failure."

"That's so sad!" Karol clutched the desk with wide eyes. "He lived all alone for fifty years? He must have really loved her."

Yuri frowned. "I think that might be toeing the line from 'love' to 'creepy obsession'."

Pavel shuffled his feet. "Yeah, that's sort of what I thought, too…. I never met him, but he didn't have any other family and my parents died a couple of months ago… I'm the only relation left, so it fell to me. I don't really know anything else. I can't imagine how he lived there alone for all these years, though. Within hours of staying in the house, I started feeling like someone was watching me. There's this weird door, too, that I couldn't get to unlock even though I have all the keys for the house. Please be careful, you guys."

Yuri shrugged. "Don't worry about us."

Karol nodded and added, "Yeah, Brave Vesperia can handle anything!"

"I can't thank you enough."

"Just pay us and we'll be even," Yuri said. "Now go home and get some rest; you look exhausted."

When the door shut after Pavel's departure, Yuri turned to Karol. "What do you think, Boss?"

Karol rubbed his chin. "I'm not sure. I definitely believe in ghosts after what we saw on the  _Atherum_ , but maybe this guy is just really skittish."

"We won't know until we check it out."

* * *

By early afternoon, they stood at the front gates of Cyril's estate. A stone wall marked the edge of the property, and the rusted iron gate hung open. Paving stones marked a path straight to the front door, but so many weeds had taken root in the gaps between them it was hard to see the path. No gardener had passed the gate in decades, leaving the grounds free to return to wilderness. Metre-high weeds covered the lawn with splashes of colour from wildflowers.

"Well," Judith said as the group stood at the head of the path, "it certainly looks like a place that might be haunted."

Repede growled in agreement. His ears stood straight and his tail twitched in tight jerks.

"No use standin' around," Raven said, folding his hands behind his head. "If there are any ghosts, we're not gonna find 'em out here." He'd offered to join Brave Vesperia when he heard about the job, considering how unusual it was.

"The old man's right." Yuri didn't wait for anyone else to take the lead and strode toward the house.

The first floor walls were made of slabs of brown stone, while the top floor was in Dahngrest-style half-timber. The shingles had probably once been neat, but decades of neglect had left the reddish wooden pieces to rot. Yuri climbed the stone steps leading to the front door. The weeds overtaking the path rustled as his friends came up behind him.

"Here goes nothing." The door was unlocked, admitting them to the entry hall. Light spilled through the door across beige tiles. The tall windows hadn't been cleaned in years, and the chandelier hanging from the ceiling was home to more spiders than candles. "Hello?!" Yuri's voice was far too small to fill the house's emptiness. "Any ghosts in here? If you want to show yourselves now and save us the trouble, I'd really appreciate it."

Karol, who stood closer to Yuri than was usually expected, hunched his shoulders. "Are you sure you should be doing that, Yuri?"

"Relax." Raven wandered toward the grand staircase. "Even if there are some spooks, they'd be nothin' we can't fight."

"We might as well explore," Judith said. "The house is probably pretty big. Perhaps we should split up?"

"No way!" Karol gaped at her. "Don't you read? Splitting up in a haunted house is the  _worst_  idea!"

"Tell you what," Yuri rested his hand on Karol's shoulder, "we'll send Repede with your group. He'll keep you plenty safe."

"That sounds fine with me," Judith said with a smile. "Let's go, Karol. We'll explore the second floor. Let's meet back here in an hour."

Karol still seemed hesitant even as Judith and Repede led him to the staircase. He gave Yuri a nervous look from the landing before Judith dragged him away.

"Looks like it's you and me, Old Man."

"Yeah, yeah," Raven grumbled.

They made their way to a door on their right. "What, not happy with me?" The room they entered was a sitting room that had once been themed with green rugs and furniture, but now everything was slightly grey from dust.

"Nothin' against ya, kid, I was just hopin' that some scary spook would startle Judy right inta my arms."

Yuri raised an eyebrow while Raven smiled to himself. "Do you really think Judy would spook that easily? She'd more likely find  _you_  in  _her_  arms after a scare."

"That's not true!" Raven ran a finger along the mantle, leaving a trail through the dust. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts."

"That so?"

"Sure!" His grin slipped and he glanced over his shoulder. "Out of curiosity, why do ya ask?"

"No reason." From the sitting room, they walked into a study. Cyril may have only died recently, but he clearly hadn't been keeping his house clean with all the dust everywhere. Yuri yanked velvet curtains aside to let light into the neglected room and fell into a coughing fit from the cloud of dust that burst in his face.

"Easy." Raven slapped his back and Yuri blinked tears from his eyes as the dust cleared.

"Man, this guy could really use a maid. How could he live here?"

"Maybe… he  _didn't_." Raven raised his hands and wiggled his fingers. In a voice that begged for an accompanying campfire, he intoned, "Fifty years ago, Cyril committed suicide over his grief at Melanie's passing. The servants who kept it up in the old days thought they were keepin' the place clean for their reclusive master, who was, in fact… a  _ghost_!"

Yuri listened with a subtly arched eyebrow. "Yeah, but the taxes suddenly stopped a month ago. Why would his ghost just suddenly decide to stop being a lawful citizen?"

Raven scrambled to make his story fit. "Because he wasn't the one payin' the taxes for all these years."

"Oh, yeah?" Yuri rested his fist on his hip. "So who was?"

It would probably be impossible to make any discussion about tax paying sound spooky, but Raven tried his best. "That's the real question, isn't it? Whoooo was payin' the  _taxes_?"

"Maybe it was the Ghost of Taxes Past," Yuri said on his way into the next room. He wasn't sure what this room was for, because he would have called it another living room but the slight difference in furniture from the first one meant it was probably something different. Yuri had grown up thinking that having four walls and a roof was the height of luxury, so he just didn't know what to make of people who needed a designated room for every activity.

"In all seriousness," Raven said examining a portrait on a sideboard, "ya can't deny this place is creepy. Imagine ol' Cyril roamin' around for fifty years, all alone. He musta been some kinda crazy."

"You're telling me. If anyone was so in love with me that they gave up on the rest of their life because I died, I wouldn't think it was romantic. That's just unhealthy." He doubted Cyril's deceased wife would have found it romantic either. If he ever turned into an obsessed hermit following someone's death and pined after them for fifty years, he wouldn't be surprised if that person's love faded away. How could you continue to love someone who'd gone so far over the line into creepiness?

"What are we even searchin' for, anyway?"

"I have no idea. Anything that indicates the presence of ghosts, I guess." Whatever that looked like. "Hey, Old Man, do you believe in, you know, actual ghosts?"

"Eh?" Raven looked over in confusion. "What d'ya mean 'actual' ghosts? We ran inta plenty on the ghost ship, didn't we?"

"No, not like that. Those were more like monsters. I'm talking about actual, sentient, spirits of the dead. People who've died and their souls linger on."

"Hm…" Raven scratched his chin. "That's a tough question. I'd like ta think so, ya know? All this life inside all of us has ta go somewhere after ya die."

"Yeah, maybe." Yuri examined a portrait sitting on a small table, wondering if the couple portrayed was a young Cyril and Melanie. The man wore a handsome suit and a huge grin, while a demure young woman clung to his arm with black hair piled in a bun atop her head. "But retaining a consciousness?" Yuri had never put too much thought into what happened after death. He was too busy concentrating on living, and figured he'd worry about the possibility of life after death when he got there.

"Maybe. If it is possible, well, I like ta think that means the people ya love can keep watchin' over you even after they pass on." Raven was idly gazing at the crown moulding, his mind drifting into the past. "It's a nice thought."

"People from the past, huh?" Yuri wiped dust off his hands with his shirt. "I guess it depends on the person. I'm pretty sure most of the dead people in my past wouldn't be too happy to see me." He'd assume he'd defeated Zagi for good at Tarquaron. The last thing he needed was for a screaming lunatic  _ghost_  to try to kill him.

Raven chuckled and they walked into the next room. Did this place have any hallways? All the rooms led from one to the other and they'd already skipped a few because they chose to keep going in a straight line rather than branch out. This room was almost entirely taken up by a grand piano, refreshingly free of dust.

"Suppose he played?" Yuri trailed his hand along the ivory keys, filling the silence of the room with a low scale.

"Must have, to bother keeping this place clean. So, you don't think there are any ghosts at all you'd like to see?"

A couple of faces swam into view: Flynn's mom's eyes wrinkling with a smile as she patted his head, or the Don's iron resolve in his final moments. He toyed with the idea of meeting them again from beyond the grave, but if that meant seeing some of the less savoury characters as well… Cumore's face swept the vision of the Don aside, and he was shortly joined by Ragou and Alexei. They'd been difficult enough to deal with when they had physical bodies he could hurt. "I think I'd rather people stay dead, as a rule. Why, you want to see some people again?"

Raven leaned against the red wallpaper, arms crossed. "There are some faces I wouldn't mind seein' again. Apologies to give and goodbyes that were missed…" He shrugged. "I never really got a chance ta resolve things with Casey. It'd be nice ta see her again."

"You wouldn't be nervous about seeing her again? I mean, what if some of that unresolved stuff isn't too pleasant to talk about?"

"I figure there's no point worryin' about that. Anythin' I regret happened ta some other guy. Ol' Raven brought nothin' inta this life but the good memories."

"That's a good way to see it." Yuri toyed with the keys, plunking out a random tune to carry the conversation away from any potential questions about his own unresolved issues. It would be nice to be able to start over and leave all his skeletons in a past life's closet, but the lives he'd taken weren't something he could just walk away from. He thought about Ragou every time he crossed the Dahngrest bridge or every time he lay awake wondering if he could still consider himself a good guy who did questionable things, or if he was a villainous person who sometimes did good things to feel better about himself. How many questionable things could he do before becoming a questionable person?

He and Raven continued into the next room, which had a billiards table hidden under a sheet. Out of the corner of Yuri's eye, something moved. His sword was out before he had time to register that it was just a spider climbing its thread to the ceiling. They wandered from this room to the next, and then through another series of sitting rooms, tea rooms, smoking rooms, reading rooms, and rooms that existed for no discernible purpose. The most exciting thing they found was a cupboard that seemed to be rattling, but when Raven slammed it open while Yuri stood ready to fight whatever ghoul came out, all they found was a squirrel.

After forty-five minutes of wandering through a crazy old man's dusty house, Yuri was starting to wonder if Pavel was just paranoid after all. In the kitchen, one of the few rooms still maintained, Yuri scanned the cupboards for non-expired food. They were planning to stay the night, and had been told to help themselves to anything in the kitchen. Yuri was just planning what kind of meal he could put together from a bag of croutons and a pile of potatoes when a scream pierced the house's quiet.

Raven's head snapped around while the potato dropped from Yuri's hand with a shout of, "Karol!"

Without a second thought, they raced to the stairs. Yuri bounded up two at a time, cursing himself for letting his guard down and thinking Pavel was exaggerating. Maybe they shouldn't have split up after all. If the ghosts were real and attacked Karol and the others, could he even fight them?

Around a few twists of hallway, he spotted Karol leaning against a wall next to Repede. Yuri's sprinting slowed when he saw Karol in one piece. "Hey," he called, jogging the rest of the way. "You all right?"

"Oh, uh, hi." He blushed and lowered his head. "Guess you heard that, huh?"

Raven panted as he came up behind Yuri. "We ran all this way and you're not even hurt? Geeze, kid, some of us aren't as young as we used ta be! This old man's heart can't take the drama."

"What happened? Where's Judy?"

Karol jerked his thumb at the door he stood beside. "In there. I really am sorry for worrying you guys. We went in and everything was dark because the curtains were closed. It was hard to see, but I could make out some sort of shape on the bed. I thought it was a pile of blankets, or maybe a squatter sleeping here. So, I went to check it out, with me axe in hand just in case, but when I reached out and poked it, there was a skeleton!" Karol squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered. "When I moved it, the head rolled off the pillow and onto my foot and I just freaked out. Sorry for scaring you."

"A skeleton? Whose?" Yuri assumed Cyril's body would have been removed, and if he'd only been dead a month, it would be a lot messier and smellier than a skeleton.

"I don't know. I panicked and ran out."

Yuri walked through the door and found a dimly-lit bedroom. A pattern of flowers wrapped in ribbons covered the faded lilac wallpaper and he almost retched from the repugnant odour of roses. Pulling his shirt over his nose, he approached Judith by the bed. "Where's that smell coming from?"

"Some kind of perfume." She didn't seem bothered by the stench, but Yuri had learned a long time ago that finding something that bothered Judith was a challenge. "He probably got into the habit of spraying the room with it during the months the body still reeked. Or, maybe she just really loved roses." She gestured to a vase by the bed filled with wilted red roses. An identical vase sat on the other side of the bed.

"She?" Raven came close enough to look down at the corpse. "So, ya know who this was?"

"I believe it was Melanie."

The lacy duvet had been pulled back enough to reveal a pink nightgown covering the bones. Yuri grimaced and turned his attention to Karol's footsteps creeping behind him as he returned to the room. The grinning skull was once again on the pillow, and Yuri silently thanked Judith for picking it up so he wouldn't have to do it himself. He was no stranger to death, but handling a dead woman's skull wasn't high on his list of priorities.

"Why would she be here?" Karol asked, forcing himself to look at the body. "She died fifty years ago. Did he just… forget about her?

Raven looked around with a frown. "I don't think Cyril forgot her. Look how clean it is in here. There's no dust on the mirror and the roses are fresh. He didn't forget her – he  _kept_  her."

Yuri couldn't help wrinkling his nose. "He kept his dead wife in his bed for fifty years?" They were past the point of 'creepily obsessive' and into full-blown insanity territory.

"If it helps," Raven said, "I don't think he slept here with her. Traditionally, in wealthy households, the man and woman have separate rooms. Based on the interior decoratin', I'd say this was the lady's room."

Judith spoke, her eyes never leaving Melanie's grinning face. "He couldn't bear to part with her, so he kept her in bed and cleaned her room so he could pretend she never died."

"That's…" Yuri was not often at a loss for words, but he couldn't find anything to sum up how deeply disturbing this room was. "Really fucking weird."

"No kidding," Karol said weakly. "So… what do we do with her? We can't just leave her here."

"Leave her for now," Raven said. "When we get back ta Dahngrest, we'll tell Pavel what happened and let him make arrangements for his great-aunt. It's not like she's actively rottin' anymore, so let's just close the door and ignore this room for tonight."

"I'm good with that plan," Yuri said, leaving the room. Back in the hall, he found Repede standing by the doorway with his fur standing up. "What's wrong?"

Repede growled, tail twitching.

Yuri glanced back in the room as the others left. "Yeah, there's something really creepy about that room."

Repede's growl turned into a slight whimper, and then he looked up with one pleading eye. He obviously wanted to leave, and his agitation put Yuri on edge. He hadn't seen anything to indicate the presence of ghosts, but something had Repede riled up and he was smart enough to not ignore his dog's instincts.

"Did ya find anythin' else up here?"

"Yeah, there's one other weird thing," Karol said, forcing casualness to hide how creeped out he was. "Follow me."

They started to walk away, but Yuri couldn't help turning back to the bedroom door when he felt eyes on the back of his neck. Nothing was there, of course. He was probably just jumpy from how creepy Melanie's bedroom was.

Karol led them through a twisting configuration of hallways, doubling back more than once because he got lost. They passed a hallway of guest bedrooms along the east wall and then turned a few corners past a writing room and some bathrooms. The long corridors had squeaky wooden floors covered in long rugs. Based on the wear versus dust, Yuri could guess which hallways Cyril never used.

"Sorry, it's easy to get turned around up here," Karol said after five minutes. "It's just around… here, yeah." He stopped at the end of a short corridor. It had no other doors except for the simple wooden one at the end. Based on the wear on the rug, Cyril had been down this corridor often.

"So, what's through the door?" Yuri asked.

Judith crossed her arms. "We're not sure. We couldn't open it. I think it's the door Pavel mentioned."

Yuri crossed the ten feet of the hall and tried the brass knob. He rattled it a few times, but it seemed to be looked. "Karol, did you try picking the lock?"

"I did, but I couldn't get it. Nothing seemed to work."

"Huh…" He pulled his hand away because the brass froze his palm. Pressing his hand against the middle of the door revealed it to be chilly as well. "What do you think is making it cold?"

"Maybe the room on the other side isn't insulated?" Karol suggested. "Sometimes doors to cellars are cold like that."

"Yeah, maybe, but… we're in the middle of the house and on the second storey."

"I don't know," Karol said, shrugging. "I can't think of anything."

"Weird."

Raven crossed his arms and looked up and down the corridor. "This whole house is weird if ya ask me. Gives me the heebie-jeebies."

Repede growled his agreement. He stood with Raven at the intersection of the halls, pointedly not taking a single step closer to the door.

Yuri turned around to face his friends, unable to shake the feeling that turning his back to this door was leaving him exposed. "Well, so far we've found a lot of heebies and jeebies but no ghosts. But, we promised Pavel we'd spend the night so let's set up camp in some of those guest bedrooms."

* * *

For dinner, they ate a bowl of croutons, baked potatoes, and grilled cheese. Luckily, Cyril had kept the kitchen and breakfast room clean so they didn't have to eat surrounded by cobwebs and dust. After dinner, they settled down in the only sitting room they could find that had been maintained.

Repede spent the evening curled tightly at the foot of Yuri's armchair. He'd made it clear he didn't want to be in the house, but he wasn't going to leave Yuri, so forced himself to stick around. In the confines of the sitting room, chatting with friends, the eeriness of the house seemed far away. Even the sky had cleared, so they got a few hours of sunlight through the window before nightfall.

Just as they were thinking of turning in for the night, Repede bolted upright, fur standing on end.

The sudden movement nearly gave Yuri a heart attack, and when Repede started barking he leapt to his feet. Repede gave him a look and then dashed out, Yuri and the others hot on his heels. It wasn't often he saw Repede so worked up, so he expected to see an undead monster around any corner.

Repede led them upstairs and ran straight to the hallway with the locked door. He came up short at the intersection and leaned forward, tail pointing straight out and lips snarled.

Yuri held out his sword, but it only took seconds to realize the hall was empty.

Karol, fear in his eyes, looked around. "Repede? What is it?"

"He heard something," Yuri said, lowering his sword but not sheathing it. There was…  _something_  not quite right. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something about standing here made his stomach squirm.

Repede's eyes were still locked on the door, which Judith slowly approached. Karol, Yuri, Raven, and Repede braced themselves to attack if anything ambushed her, and Yuri didn't breathe as she reached for the doorknob.

The handle rattled, and the door didn't even budge. Judith turned back to the others with a shrug. "Seems the same as before."

Yuri watched Repede carefully, lamenting his friend's lack of speech. He could usually figure out what Repede was trying to communicate, but it got trickier with precise details. It was clear that Repede's message was 'I do not like this door or this house and I feel very strongly that there is something bad going on here', but until Rita invented a way for dogs to communicate in human speech, he'd have to figure out the details on his own.

"Ok…" Karol spoke slowly, carefully balancing how freaked out he was with the need to be confident as the guild boss. "I think it would be really naïve of us to pass this off as nothing just because we don't see it. Clearly something spooked Repede. We need to get some sleep, so let's clean up one of the guest bedrooms. We'll stay in the same room and sleep in shifts, just in case."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Yuri said. He considered suggesting they take the master bedroom, since that one had been in use recently and wouldn't be covered in dust, but it was directly connected to Melanie's bedroom, and no one wanted to get too close to that room.

They found a bedroom near the main staircase that had a pair of double beds. They changed the sheets with spares found in the closet, did a bit of dusting on the dresser and desk, swept the wooden floors, and called it good. It wasn't the kind of room Yuri would decorate, with little purple flowers in neat vertical rows covering the wallpaper, but with the lamps lit and white curtains pulled aside to let moonlight gleam on the mirror of the vanity, it was almost cozy.

"Only two beds," Raven pointed out. "We'll have ta double up. What d'ya say, Judy, care to sleep with ol' Raven?"

"I don't see why not."

Raven pumped his fist in the air. "All right! Score one for the old man!"

"Looks like we're sharing, Boss," Yuri said. "Just promise me you won't take up the whole bed."

In no time, they'd gotten ready for bed and tucked in under the covers. Repede, still restless, was taking the first watch and would wake Yuri in two hours. Yuri settled in to sleep, already feeling Karol spreading his limbs out to inevitably take up three-fourths of the bed. There was nothing to worry about, he told himself. Repede was the best watchdog a man could hope for, and so far they had nothing to be afraid of but a weird feeling and a long-dead skeleton.

He was just spooked, that was all. Cyril was a sad, lonely old man who'd done something really freaky with his wife's remains, and coupled with Pavel's story, Yuri's mind was eager to fill in the blanks with ghouls and monsters. Repede had everything under control and he let himself believe the sounds he heard were just his mind playing tricks on him.

It was just the wind, he insisted as he wavered on the edge of consciousness. Still, just before falling into sleep, he found himself thinking,  _but why is the wind calling my name?_


	2. In the Dark

They ate stale cereal for breakfast. They found milk, but sniffing it nearly made Karol throw up so they decided to eat it dry. The breakfast room was pleasant enough, with baby blue walls and a clean bay window. Cyril had probably used it for all his meals, since it was next to the kitchen and easier to keep in order than the massive dining room. Sitting around the breakfast table, Judith asked, "So, did anyone see any ghosts last night?"

"N-no," Karol stammered, glancing nervously between the others. "Why? Did you guys?"

"Hm…" Judith leaned forward on her hand.

"Spill," Raven said. "If ya saw somethin', speak up."

"I'm not sure." She idly stirred her dry corn flakes, not looking at the bowl. "When it was my turn to take watch, I felt… very uneasy. It's hard to put a word to the feeling. Not quite being watched, but as if I could feel that we weren't alone in the house."

Yuri found a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the clammy weather. "I didn't see anything, but I might have heard something. I heard it as I was falling asleep, and again when I was keeping watch."

"What was it?" Karol's knuckles were white around his spoon.

"My name." Yuri reached out to scratch Repede's head as he tried to remember more clearly. Repede hadn't slept much last night and was still fairly groggy this morning. "At least, that's what it sounded like. It could have just been the wind." It would be easier if he had a name like, say, Estellise, with a bunch of consonants and syllables it would be hard to mistake. "In fact, I would say it was definitely the wind if it weren't for the fact that I head it more from the direction of the bedroom door than the window."

Karol shuddered. "That's so creepy."

Yuri turned his attention to Raven. "What about you, Old Man?"

"Well… I'm not totally sure, ta be honest. At one point, I woke up when I felt the end of the bed compress, like someone was sittin' there. Then a voice said, 'Hello, again'."

"Did anyone see that?" Yuri snapped his eyes around the group, from Karol's terrified stare to Judith's stoic interest and Repede's drowsy eye. "There was always someone awake in the room. Someone must have seen that."

Karol and Judith shook their heads and Repede growled a negative. Yuri was certain he would have noticed something like that during the block he sat awake, but he also knew Raven wouldn't make something like that up.

Raven shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not positive I wasn't dreamin'."

Karol frowned, deep in thought. "Maybe you were dreaming… but with all the other stuff going on, you might not have been. I think we've seen enough to confirm there is definitely something weird going on in this house. We should stay until we get to the bottom of it and can clear the ghosts out for Pavel."

Yuri swallowed a dry, tasteless mouthful. "If we're going to stay any longer, we're going to need more grub. Someone should go back to town and get supplies."

"Good thinking. Who should go?" Karol looked around at the group.

"You go, Captain," Yuri said. Karol was clearly the most freaked out, and the kid could use a break from the house. "You should meet with Pavel when you're in town and give him an update, and it ought to be the boss of the guild who meets with the client."

"Good point." Karol nodded enthusiastically, on board with any suggestion that gave him a good reason to leave the house.

Repede seemed pretty antsy in here as well, so Yuri said, "Take Repede with you, just in case you run into monsters on the road back. You probably won't, but travelling alone is never safe and he can help carry things back."

Judith gazed out the window. "You should leave now. There are clouds coming in and it will probably rain later today."

"Yeah, ok. Will you guys be ok by yourselves?"

"Don't worry about us," Yuri said. "I'm going to check out the cellar, since we just took a quick look yesterday. We should search the library, too. Maybe there's some information in there."

"Ok, I'll be back this evening, probably."

* * *

Yuri opened the door to the cellar. "So, 'hello again', huh? What's the supposed to mean?"

"Ya got me."

They'd seen Karol and Repede off after breakfast and then explored the grounds, just in case. The grey sky made a dull backdrop as they wandered through the scratchy weeds around the house, made duller by their lack of any discoveries. Yuri wasn't sure what they'd been looking for, perhaps secret entrances or bodies hidden in the yard, but they hadn't found it.

"Maybe it means the ghost is friendly," Judith suggested as they began the descent.

Yuri walked slowly, placing his feet on the sides of the steps where they were least creaky. He didn't trust them not to collapse and breaking his leg on rotting wood didn't sound like fun.

The air was cooler at the bottom, and mixed with a delightful medley of dust, mould, and rat droppings. Grey stone walls and concrete floors did nothing to help with the chill. In front of them stretched a long corridor, with rooms branching off. Yesterday, Yuri and Raven and come down here just long enough to conclude it was dark, cold, and creepy.

"Is that a bedroom?" Judith asked as she popped her head in the first door on the left. "Who would want to sleep down here?"

"Servants," Raven explained. "In a proper house, the basement would be well-lit and bustlin' with activity, but all the servant rooms were left ta rot with everythin' else."

Yuri peered in the room, really more like a cell, over Judith's shoulder. All it had was a white-sheeted bed with a brass-barred headboard and a couple of dusty shelves. "Even then, I don't think this would be a great place to sleep."

Raven shrugged. "Pretty run o' the mill for a servant's room. In fact, pretty swanky to get a room and not a mat in the kitchen."

Yuri wrinkled his nose. "This is why I can't stand rich people. With all those fancy guest bedrooms upstairs, everyone who worked here could have had a nice room."

"Yeah, the system's pretty screwed up." Raven kept walking down the hall. "But that's the way it is."

"Are these all bedrooms?" Judith asked, opening another door. "Oh, this one is actually a linen closet."

"Hey, perfect." Yuri grabbed a white sheet and shook out the dust. He threw it over his head and waved his hands out. "Ok, here's the plan: when Karol comes back, you guys tell him I've gone missing and you can't find me anywhere. I'll hide in a cupboard, and as soon as he walks by, I'll jump out and scare the crap out of him."

"That doesn't sound very nice," Judith said. "Besides, if you're going to go through all the effort to scare him, you could do a lot better than a bed sheet ghost."

Yuri whipped the sheet off, leaving his hair tousled. "Yeah, good point. Any ideas, Old Man?" Yuri turned, but Raven wasn't beside them anymore. "Old Man?"

"Over here." He stood in a doorway about ten feet down the hall, hand still resting on the knob.

"Did you find something?" Judith asked.

Yuri let the sheet drop without a word and approached, ready to pull out his sword.

"Nothing ta worry about." He stepped aside to let them see into the room. "Just, I think I found where ol' Cyril's body was discovered."

It was a storage room for silverware, with gleaming metal goblets and plates hidden behind dusty glass. Two huge shelving units flanked the walls, standing guard over a dark stain in the middle of the floor. The dark brown stain was roughly humanoid, like the imprint of the dead man had been scorched into the concrete.

"Pavel said he was found in the basement." Yuri entered the room slowly, eyes on the stain. "Seems like a weird place to find him. I wonder why he wanted a plate?"

"How did he die?" Judith crouched and examined the mark more closely. "It doesn't look like trauma."

"Heart failure, or so Pavel said. That was their best guess, at least, since he was already a month decayed when they found him. He didn't show any sign of trauma or injury."

"That's what I was going to say. The stain is pretty even, so it doesn't look like he bled out or anything. He must have lain flat and the blood, fluids, and decomposing tissue leaked beneath him and caused a stain."

"So, the old guy came down to the creepy basement to get some silverware, had a sudden heart attack and dropped dead." Yuri looked between the shelves. "I wonder what he was after? Considering how abandoned the rest of the house is, I get the impression he didn't come down here often."

"Look, his feet point to the door. Those round, dense spots at his feet would have been his heels. If he was on his face, the top of his feet would have pressed against the ground more evenly. That means he must have been facing the door when he collapsed backward, so he was on his way out."

"Good eye. You should be a detective, Judy." Part of her skill might be that she didn't seem at all squeamish at closely examining the stain of decomposing fluid, while Yuri found the whole sight deeply revolting. "But, all the cupboards are closed and the dust is undisturbed, so he didn't open any of them."

Judith stood, raising her head from the gruesome floor to Yuri's face. "So he came downstairs, walked into the middle of the silver room, change his mind, turned around, and dropped dead."

"That sounds like some kind of riddle," Yuri said. "You know, like 'a man walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender threatens him with a knife. The man says thanks and walks out. Explain.'"

"Yeah," Raven said, "except this actually happened and it might be key ta figurin' out what's goin' on in this house."

Yuri sighed. "Man, all this could have been avoided if Cyril had just dealt with-"

_Bang!_

"What was that?!" Yuri was already on his way to the door as he said it. He dashed into the dark hall, lit only by Judith's lamp because the door to the bright kitchen had slammed shut. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!"

Steps groaned under his feet and then the knob rattled as Yuri shook it. "Karol, if that's you, we're still down here!" Even as he said it, he knew it wasn't Karol. He and Repede had left over an hour ago and had no reason to be back until evening. "Dammit…."

"Do you hear anything on the other side of the door?" Judith asked. She and Raven stood at the foot of the stairs, not putting any more weight on the steps then necessary.

Yuri pressed his ear against the door. "No… not even wind or anything." Part of him wanted to believe it had been a breeze that slammed the door, but he wasn't that naïve. There were no open windows in the house, so if there was a breeze indoors, that would just raise further questions.

No matter how many times he tugged the door, it remained jammed. After staring at it for a few seconds, he tried smashing his shoulder against it. The hinges creaked and dust rained from the frame, but it remains stubbornly in place. Maybe he could get it if he had a running start, but space was limited at the top of the stairs.

Out of options, he thumped back down the stairs. "I don't think we're going to get it open."

"Do you think there's another way out?" Judith lifted the lamp so the light spread further down the hall.

Raven pulled his hands behind his head and sighed. "Doubt it. We can look, but it's not like we're gonna find a window in a basement."

"We might as well try," Yuri said.

* * *

"I like this one better," Judith said, swishing wine around her glass. "It's not as sweet."

Yuri wrinkled his nose. "That's why the other one was better." It was hard to guess how long they'd been stuck in the basement. Part of this was because there were no clocks and no light, and the other part was that they'd found the wine cellar and discovered an afternoon of wine tasting was both a great way to waste time and great muddler of the flow of time.

"Wine is a  _great_  invention." Raven leaned against the wall with his legs stretched out, and an empty goblet in hand. "Most food expires after awhile, but wine just keeps getting' better an' better."

"Too bad it tastes like rotten fruit." By virtue of finding most of the wine unappetizing, Yuri still had the firmest grasp on sobriety. They must have been down here for at least five or six hours, and his stomach growled. The lamp had barely any oil left, so soon they'd be left in darkness.

"My dad used to drink something like this," Judith said. She examined the label on the bottle in the fading light. "I think the grapes were grown in the same place. He let me try it when I was little. My mother was upset with him, but I hated it anyway."

"It's an acquired taste." Raven stretched his arms out, seeming to forget he still had the glass in hand because it clinked against the wall. "I didn't like it when I was a kid, either."

"I think the first time I had wine was…" Yuri searched his memories, made slightly more difficult by the alcohol making things fuzzy. "Sometime when I was a teenager. Flynn and I heard of a recipe to make it yourself so we gave it a try but it was pretty awful."

Raven wrinkled his nose. "That's… that's a  _crime_  against good wine."

"Who came up with wine?" Yuri glared at red liquid. "I don't think anyone actually likes it. That's how they came up with the aging process – everyone just put off drinking it and then claimed they liked it better that way to save face."

"Ya've just never had the good stuff. My old man had a wine cellar with some o' the best wine I've ever had. Used ta steal it when he was out. Boy, did he ever ream me out when he fin'lly caught on. I'll take ya out some time, kid. Show ya some  _real_  good wine. Though…" He took another long swig. "This stuff's preeetty good."

"I think I'll pass." Yuri stood to stretch his legs. He brushed dirt from his pants and stared at the locked door with a sigh. "Man, how much longer are we going to be stuck down here?"

"I'm sure Karol will be home soon," Judith said.

"I sure hope so." The orangey light flickered on the walls, warning that it was minutes away from extinguishing. "Wonder why whatever this is wanted to lock us down here in the first place."

"Prob'ly doesn't like us in its house," Raven said. "I'd be pretty mad if some strangers came snoopin' 'round my house."

Yuri turned back to the others. "Do you think the ghost is Cyril's?"

"Could be," Judith said, nodding slowly. "Although, we already know that Cyril was not entirely sane. I think it's possible the house was haunted while he was living here, and that might have fuelled his insanity."

"The house was brand new when he started living here. Who…?" He smacked his head, which made him so dizzy he had to clutch the wall. Whoa, ok, maybe he was a little more tipsy than he'd thought. "Melanie."

"It makes a lot of sense," Judith said. "A dead wife who died tragically young, and her body left in bed and not given a proper burial. I'd be more surprised if she  _didn't_  stick around to haunt this place, and now she's upset that we're trespassing." Judith tilted her head in thought. "How do we exorcise a ghost? I know how to fight them, but this seems like a different kind of ghost."

"We need to find her fir-" the lamp died. In the sudden darkness, Yuri lowered his voice on instinct to finish, "…first."

Upstairs, a crack of light shone under the door, but in the depths of the basement it was ineffective. Yuri took a couple of steps toward Judith and accidentally kicked an empty bottle of wine. It clinked on the ground and growled as it rolled away on the rough cement.

"I'm here." Judith reached up and her hand brushed his leg. Using that as a guide, Yuri found the wall and managed to sit next to her.

No one said anything at first. Yuri's stomach rumbled and he prayed Karol brought back something delicious for dinner, because stale corn flakes had been a less than filling breakfast. "Karol will be back soon."

"Yeah, sure," Raven said.

"You know, Melanie," Yuri called out, his voice seemingly much louder in the silent basement, "if you're listening, it would be really nice if you unlocked the door. I'd appreciate it a lot."

Unsurprisingly, the door remained shut. Without eyesight as a distraction, Yuri's ears piqued at every noise. That scratching was probably a rat in the room next door, and the creaking was just the typical sounds of a big old house. But… was it just him, or were those creaks rather rhythmic? If he toyed with it in his mind enough, they sounded an awful lot like footsteps on the floorboards just above their heads.

He shook his head, and then rubbed his eyes to clear the resulting dizziness. It would be foolish to put too much thought into things observed when not-entirely sober. Still…

Yuri craned his neck to stare at the ceiling. "Do you guys hear something up there?"

"Um…" Judith thought for a moment. "Now that you mention it. Footsteps."

"I don' hear nothin'."

"Are you even listening?" Raven had indulged in more wine than either of them, so Yuri wasn't sure what to make of his observations.

 _Creak… creak… creak…_  The steps circled above their heads.

Yuri hesitantly called, "Karol?"

Silence. Yuri's heart tightened and he suddenly wanted to kick himself for calling out. The creaking began again, moving away… and toward the door.

"Whazzat?" Raven slurred. "Ya here the kid commin'?"

Judith immediately shushed him followed by Yuri whispering, "Quiet." He stopped himself from saying 'it heard us'.  _What_  heard them? Melanie? He wasn't afraid of some dead woman. After all the monsters he'd faced, he was confident she wouldn't be any major trouble. Still, the need to step quiet because  _something_  was coming toward them overran any logic.

A shadow passed the door and Yuri's heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was the alcoholic glow fading from his cheeks, but a sudden chill gripped him and –

 _BAM_.

Something slammed into the door, and a rain of debris sprinkled to the stairs. Yuri couldn't help jumping and Judith's hand landed on his elbow.

Yuri swallowed and breathed, "The hell was that?" He found himself edging closer to Judith, telling himself it was because she was warm and the basement was freezing. Rarely had he ever desired light more, but the inky darkness of the basement messed with his head. Was that movement in front of him, or just his mind making something up to fill the emptiness?

And then another sound prickled in his ears. He didn't notice at first because he was so focused on listening for footsteps, and his brain didn't know what to make of music notes. That's what they were, though. The soft plinking of piano keys drifted to his ears, singing a melody of warm, sunny days.

Whispering, he asked, "You guys hear that, right?"

"Yeah," Raven answered.

"Good, so I'm not just crazy."

It wasn't a complex song. Notes came one at a time, high and sweet. They carried images of green hills and gentle breezes into his mind, and even though he couldn't even begin to know who was playing the piano, he found his chest loosening at the sound. It seemed like a folk song, perhaps, with a timeless melody he felt he already knew even though he'd certainly never heard it before.

The song wasn't the least bit scary, but sitting in the freezing dark which his heart still hammering, it almost seemed to mock him. The music told him to relax and be at peace, but his surroundings told him to keep his guard up. Yuri hadn't forgotten the footsteps or that awful dread when they'd come toward them. Where were they now? He couldn't hear anything but music.

"Judy, darlin'," Raven piped up, "I just gotta say… never thought ya'd be the type ta cling ta people when scared… not that I'm complainin' or nothin'. Ya can stay on my arm as loooong as ya want."

If possible, the room grew colder, but that might just be because Yuri's heart momentarily stopped beating.

"What are you talking about?" came Judith's voice from right beside Yuri. "I'm over here."

The pause was so thick it added another layer of darkness.

"Then… who…?" Shuffling as Raven jumped to his feet. "What the hell!?" Glass shattered, Raven swore, and that thump sounded like his body hitting the ground.

Yuri was on his feet before realizing he'd decided to stand. "Who's there?" His sword swung out but in the darkness he didn't know where to point it.

"Put that away!" Judith was still on the ground, her tone sharper than his blade. "You're going to cut someone in this darkness. Raven, are you hurt?"

Raven groaned.

The lighthearted music clashed with the tension tight in Yuri's heart. "Show yourself!"

His hair fluttered and he shook off a shiver. The sweet notes of the song twisted as the next two were off-key and then it cut off completely. In the distance, something banged on the walls, getting softer and softer.

"Where are you?!"

Another bang, and blinding light streamed into the basement. Yuri squinted and raised his arm, just able to make out a short silhouette at the top of the stairs. Then there was a bark, and a few seconds later a familiar figure pounced on Yuri.

"What are you guys doing down there?" Karol asked.

Yuri had never let out such a deep breath. He sheathed his sword and ran his fingers through Repede's warm, thick fur. "Don't come down!" he shouted when he saw Karol head for the steps. "The door slammed shut and locked us in."

Judith helped Raven to his feet and he brushed off dust. His wine glass had shattered and he looked shaken, but no worse for wear. Yuri didn't want to spend any more time down here, so he hurried up the stairs and into the kitchen.

"That's weird," Karol said, eyeing the door. "It wasn't locked when I opened it."

"Did you hear the music?" Judith asked.

"Is that what that was?" Karol frowned. "As soon as I walked in, I thought I heard a piano cut off. I heard Yuri shouting and came to check it out. Are you guys ok?"

"We're fine," Judith said. "Thank you for rescuing us."

"Yeah, no problem… boy, this house gives me the creeps."

"I'll say." Yuri leaned against the counter. He didn't think he'd ever been so glad to see Karol before. He'd thought all three of them being trapped down there was bad, but that was nothing compared to realizing it  _hadn't_  been just the three of them.


	3. Melanie

Yuri and the others filled Karol in on what happened in the basement, and a quick search of the house revealed nobody. The music room was as empty as ever, and Yuri still had that damn melody stuck in his head.

After dinner, the group settled in the living room. Outside, the rain had arrived and pelted the window. They had more lamps than needed to illuminate the room, but nobody complained about the extra brightness. The living room, with its comfy blue armchairs and floral-print sofa, was the coziest room in the house and when it was brightly lit, Yuri could almost forget what the rest of the building was like. Having the entire guild together in one room was comforting, too. This was their bastion against the house's oddities, and no matter what it threw at them, he knew they could face it all together.

"I talked to Pavel about the house," Karol said. "I mentioned how disorienting it was so he gave me floor plans, and he said he would send a mortician tomorrow to collect Melanie's body. Although, they might come the day after if it's still pouring rain. He found a picture of them, too." Karol reached into the papers on the coffee table and pulled out an old, faded picture.

It was the same couple from the portrait in the music room. Cyril wore his hair short and his ascot tight, while Melanie's dark locks were tied in an elaborate bun and her gown swept the floor. It was hard to imagine the beautiful girl in the picture as the decayed skeleton upstairs.

"You guys think Melanie is the ghost responsible for all this?"

"It would make sense," Yuri said.

Karol shuffled another paper out and unfolded it, revealing a blueprint of the house. "I asked Pavel about the weird door on the second floor. He doesn't know what to make of it. So, we looked for it on the blueprints to see what room it led to, and, well… see for yourself."

Yuri leaned forward resting an elbow on Repede since the dog was glued to his side. He scanned the diagram, trying to make sense of all the lines. After a minute, he said, "I can't find it."

"Me neither," Judith said.

"That's the thing." Karol shuffled his feet and stared at the blueprints warily. "It's not on there at all."

"Hold it, I found the hallway," Raven said. He jabbed his finger at a set of lines smack-dab in the middle of the building. "I recognize the layout of the halls around it. Here's the room we're staying in, and here is the corridor that intersects with it, and here is the corridor that's perpendicular to it, and here's the short connecting hall."

Yuri saw what Raven was pointing at, a section of corridors shaped like an H right in the middle of the house. "But that's where the door is." He pointed at the middle of the H. "There should be a room right here."

"Yeah," Karol said. "But there's not."

"Maybe they deviated from the floor plan when building the house," Yuri suggested, knowing it sounded desperate even as he said it. If this were the only weird thing, he wouldn't think anything of it, but coupled with a door shutting on its own, a phantom piano, weird noises in the night, and a ghostly presence holding Raven's hand, a mysterious room wasn't too big a leap.

"Hm…" Judith took the sheet and then the page showing the basement and laid it over top. After straightening the edges, she rested her finger on the centre, exactly where the mysterious door had been. "That's odd."

Yuri took a closer look to see what room her finger was in. Somehow, he wasn't the least bit surprised to discover her finger was right in the middle of the silver room, precisely where Cyril's body was found.

"That's weird all right," Raven said, rubbing his chin. "Could be a coincidence."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Yuri said.

"Me neither." Judith folded her arm and leaned back on the sofa. "Curiouser and curiouser."

By mid-morning, the rain hadn't let up. Repede was surly on dreary days at the best of times, but in the claustrophobic house he paced in tight circles and kept letting out sighs that turned into growls. The mortician wouldn't be coming today, so they'd have to spend another day with that creepy skeleton in the upstairs room. There was nothing they could do until the mortician arrived to take away Melanie's body, so they were lazing the day away in the living room. The house was chilly, and the living room fireplace sat empty. Rain thudded against the windows, begging for a fire to dispel the cold.

"We should build a fire," Yuri said out of the blue.

Karol looked over from the sofa. "That sounds like a good idea."

"There should be firewood in the cellar," Judith said. "I'll go get it as long as someone stays behind in case the door closes again."

"Don't worry about a thing! I'll protect ya, Judy darlin'," Raven said.

Yuri hopped up. "Karol, come with me and look for newspaper or something we can use as kindling."

Karol followed him from the room. Yuri wasn't sure where to start looking for old newspaper, but Cyril might have kept some in his bedroom so he headed upstairs. Even after spending a couple of days here, Yuri still got turned around up here. Whoever the architect had been, they certainly didn't make it easy to navigate.

"What was that?" Karol asked.

"Huh? I didn't say anything."

Karol stepped a little closer. "Y-you didn't?"

"No…" They stopped walking in the middle of the corridor. A flutter of sound reached out of the shadows, a whisper just soft enough he couldn't make it out. They seeped out of the shadowy recesses along the ceiling from the left and then the right. Concentrating to try to make it out just made his head hurt.

"Where is that coming from?" Karol's head spun, trying to pick out movement from the shadows. They didn't have any lights up here, but enough made it through the storm clouds and windows to save them from complete darkness.

There were words in the whispers, he just couldn't decipher them. It frustrated him, like when he was a kid and heard other children talking among themselves and all he could pick out was his name followed by giggles. He raised his voice and spoke to the walls. "Talking about someone behind their back is pretty low, you know."

"Yuri, don't make the ghosts mad at us!"

"Ha! If these ghosts were any threat they'd come out and face us instead of creeping around behind our backs. Come on, Karol." He strode forward, determined not to let Karol see how concerned he was about an enemy they couldn't see or fight.

Karol hurried to follow, tripping on Yuri's heels in an effort to stay close. The whispering continued, and then was joined by a low humming. Within seconds, Yuri realized the hum followed the same tune as the song on the piano, only slowed down. It came from behind, but Yuri wasn't going to give this stupid ghost the satisfaction of knowing he was nervous so he stubbornly ignored it.

Karol yelped and crashed into Yuri, nearly knocking him to the ground. Yuri stumbled and flung his hand to the wall for support. Tattered wallpaper ripped under his hand. "Karol!"

"Yuri, I saw someone!"

Yuri whirled around. "Where?"

"There!" His shaking finger pointed to the end of the hall. "I glanced over my shoulder and I saw someone walk past!"

"Alright, let's see this ghost face to face!"

"Are you sure we shouldn't get Raven and Judy first?"

Yuri was already running to the end of the hall, so Karol hurried to catch up in fear of being left alone. "No, we can't let it get away!" He rounded the corner and saw the trail of a dress flutter around a corner. Pounding feet stirred up dust from the carpet, making his throat itch and eyes water.

Around another corner. Yuri's heart leapt to his throat – a man! After another blink, he saw it was just a portrait. He couldn't see a dress anywhere, but a soft hum drifted down the hall. Yuri let his ears guide him further down the hall and around a corner just in time to see a woman's back walk straight through a door. Her navy skirt fluttered around her ankles while her white blouse was almost obscured by black, waist-length hair.

Yuri's breath caught in his throat and his knees locked when he saw her. Even after she disappeared into the room at the end of the corridor and all that remain was her hummed melody fading away, he couldn't bring himself to move. It was one thing to believe a woman's ghost haunted the building, and another to see her in person.

Karol shook so much Yuri could feel the vibrations against his side. "Y-y-you saw that too, right?"

"Yeah," Yuri whispered.

"We have to check out that room, don't we?"

Yuri looked down at Karol's white face. "If we both charge in, it might scare her off. It would probably be better if just one of us went. Stay there."

"O-o-ok."

He could barely hear her humming over the rain now. They were at the side of the house, where wide windows let in grey light and the bullets of rain hit the glass only inches away. At the door, he curled his fingers around the icy doorknob. The feel of a stare burned the back of his beck, but a check over his shoulder confirmed it was just Karol lurking by the window and watching with trepidation.

The door's hinges craved oil. Yuri stepped into a small room lined with bookshelves and found Melanie staring back at him. Already jumpy, his hand flew to his sword before realizing it was just a painting. The portrait was almost as tall as he was, showing Melanie, lovingly rendered in oil, smiling at the viewer. Wavy dark hair framed a heart-shaped face and her brown eyes invited him in. Her spectral form – because after glimpsing a young woman with long black hair, Yuri had little doubt their hypothesis was confirmed – was nowhere to be seen. Even her ethereal melody had gone silent.

The painting sat above a wooden desk, covered in scraps of paper. Yuri strolled closer and found a selection of quills and an open bottle of ink. Scraps of paper littered the desk, covered in doodles. A closer look showed that most of the doodles were attempts to recreate the portrait above – a carefully drawn eye or an experiment with the curve of her nose. The scraps with no drawings had words instead, the most prominent of which was 'Melanie' scribbled over and over. 'My love' and 'Always' made appearances as well. In the middle of the desk was a leather book. Yuri flipped it open and discovered it was a journal, and tiny, difficult to understand writing covered every page.

Battle-hardened instinct gave him one second of warning before a crash thundered through the room. The door slammed shut and a something solid smashed into his chest, knocking the breath out of him on his way to the floor. The whole room shook, and then a book case teetered and toppled to the ground.

An avalanche of books hit him seconds before the heavy wooden shelf crushed him. Thankfully, his head was caught in a space between shelves, but slats of wood crushed his collarbone, stomach, thighs, and shins. Book ridges painfully dug into his skin. Bangs came from the door and someone shouted his name – Karol, probably. Raps also came from the window, though, and he was pretty sure that wasn't Karol.

The shelf wasn't that heavy on its own. Struggling, he pulled his arms up to try pushing it off. He managed to get it an inch, and then a mighty force shoved it back down. It felt like someone had dropped a ton of weights on top, crushing the air out of him. He shivered and gasped for breath while the bookshelf got heavier and heavier.

Attempts to escape were useless because he was too pinned down. He could barely breathe, let alone move. His chest ached as he struggled for breath. He had all the air around his head he needed, but the crushing weight prevented him from expanding his lungs. Fury filled in for missing air. After everything he'd been through, he was going to get crushed to death by a bookshelf?! I don't want to go like this!

A disturbing thought forced its way into his mind: Tell me, Yuri. When was the last time you heard those very words? It would be fitting, really, to suffocate. An eye for an eye was the principle he used when deciding to act against Ragou and Cumore, and after what he'd done to the latter, a death by suffocation would be his just deserts.

Over the pounding of both the rain and the rush of blood in his ears, a voice filled the room. The words came slow, like they'd been dragged out over a great distance and echoed accordingly. A high-pitched voice, distorted but clearly still feminine, intoned, "GO…AWAY…"

As the wisps of words faded into the rain, the weight lightened and Yuri took a grateful gulp of air. The chill froze his throat. He swore he could feel the energy leave the room as he lay still and took deep breaths.

The door slammed again and he flinched, but then Karol yelled, "Yuri! Yuri, are you ok!?"

"Fine," he grunted. "Help me get this off."

Karol managed to lift the bookshelf enough so Yuri could wriggle out. Sore and winded, he sat on the floor and glared at the serene portrait of Melanie.

"Yeah, screw you, too."

"What happened?"

Yuri told him, and then got to his feet while rubbing his side. He was going to have some nasty bruises after this.

"She actually spoke to you?" Karol folded in on himself, looking around the room like he expected Melanie to burst out saying 'boo!'

"Yeah. Guess I should call myself lucky she decided to let me off with a warning." She could have killed him, he thought with a shudder. If the weight on that bookshelf had increased, he could have been crushed to death. "Grab that book on the desk and let's get out of here. A fire can wait."

They ended up finding old, dry paper in the study on the first floor. Raven built a fire and the group huddled around it in the main room. Now that Melanie had proven herself actually dangerous, no one was keen to go anywhere on their own. The warmth of the fire helped dispel the darkness that settled over the house, and its crackling made the drumming rain less noticeable.

Yuri stretched out on the sofa, nursing a steadily growing resentment toward Melanie as bruises settled into his bones. "Judy, can you read this?" He handed over the journal he'd found in the writing room. The writing was too cramped, too cursive, and too untidy for him to discern.

She leaned against the bricks of the mantle, the fire casting half her face in orange light. "I think so." She flipped through the yellowing pages and scanned one near the beginning. "This was clearly written by Cyril. Here he's talking about their wedding and how perfect it was. The next few pages are about their honeymoon, then moving into the house. He seems very happy."

"Skip ahead ta when Melanie died." Raven sat cross-legged on the other side of the mantle.

Judith flipped through pages. "I'm not sure exactly when – oh."

Karol, kneeled beside her, leaned over. "Did you find it?"

"There's only one line here. 'Today, the light of my life has gone out.' That's all he wrote."

Karol sat back down. "That's so sad."

It was sad that Melanie had died young, Yuri thought. That didn't mean he wasn't still mad at her for trying to kill him. "There's fifty years of memoirs in there. Can you find anything that would answer why he left her in bed, or why he died in such a specific place?"

"I'm looking. He didn't write every day, it seems. He did at first but I think he was too busy grieving to write every day. Let's see… 'I find myself thinking of my dear Melanie often. I see her everywhere in the faces of young woman, I hear her laugh in the giggling of maids. A delivery girl came yesterday who had just her nose and I found myself momentarily staring. I feel as if I should walk into the music room and see her seated at the piano, and it always comes as a shock when she's not there. The halls are empty without her voice to fill them. She was so full of life; how could all of that simply be gone? It seems preposterous to me that a life can exist and then so suddenly… not. Where did she go? The spirit that filled her heart cannot simply have vanished; I am sure of it.'" Judith lowered the book and her eyes flicked between the captive audience. "It seems like he really loved her."

"I'm going to assume she didn't throw bookshelves at people when she was alive," Yuri said. "Did she haunt him, too? Is there anything in there about her ghost?"

Judith flipped through more pages. "Let's see… oh, my."

"What did ya find?"

"This was written one week after Melanie died. 'I have been trying to figure out where to bury my beloved. I cannot think of a place where covering her in dirt would seem fitting, and no memorial would live up to her beauty. Perhaps, though, the reason no solution has felt appropriate is because my dear Melanie is not truly dead. Her soul was so bright, mere death could not snuff her out. She's still here, sleeping in bed as always, is she not? I can see her, I can run my fingers through her hair. She is as beautiful as always. My Melanie is still with me, and she always will be.'"

Judith flipped through the pages. The pounding rain seemed less noticeable now, Judith's voice the only thing Yuri focused on. He imagined Cyril running his fingers through the stringy hair of a rotting corpse and somehow seeing his beloved through the decomposing flesh.

"I don't know what to read next," Judith said, turning the old pages gently. "Every entry sound more insane than the last. He talks about the struggle of caring for a bedridden wife, how he takes care to keep the music room clean for her so she can play the piano again when her sickness passes, and how he had to fire servants for being rude to her."

"For pointing out she's a skeleton, no doubt," Yuri said.

"This is from about ten years ago. 'Today, Melanie played her song for me for the first time since she became bedridden. Oh, how my ears have longed to hear it! The power of her song filled the house, every note layering over the other in a symphony of a single instrument. Even after all these years, my heart grows with love for her every day.'" She turned a few more pages. "Here, several years later. 'I could not be happier. Melanie makes my life bliss. I do not know how to explain the phenomena that drove the last of my servants to quit. They claimed we were no longer alone in the house, and I said that was correct, because Melanie was with us. I think, perhaps, I will follow her advice soon.'"

Karol frowned. "Advice? That doesn't sound good."

Raven tapped his knee. "What does the final entry say? Does it give any indication of how he died?"

Karol looked across Judith at him. "I thought we knew how he died? Pavel said it was heart failure."

Yuri forced himself upright, sore muscles groaning. "That's just what they guessed because they didn't see any outward cause of injury or illness. What does it say, Judy?"

Judith flipped to the end. There was still several blank pages that Cyril never got around to filling. "The last entry is very short. It just says, 'There are days when I miss Melanie terribly. Today, the emptiness in my heart feels too great to bear. I know Melanie is with me, but… I am not with her. I want to be with her in every way, and as long as our worlds are divided, I fear that will not happen. I know what I must do – what I should have done so long ago, were I not afraid. I only hope she will still have me as an old man, when her beauty is as untarnished as ever.' That's all he wrote."

Raven nodded slowly. "Sounds ta me like he committed suicide."

Yuri's brow furrowed with thought. "Is there a way to induce a heart attack, though?"

Raven scratched his chin. "It might be possible. The right drugs oughta stop your heart. Not sure where he'd have gotten them, or why he chose to do it in the basement."

"Is there anything about the door?" Karol asked.

Judith skimmed through the pages, eyes darting back and forth. "Maybe buried deep in here. Nothing is popping out at me."

Yuri let out a sigh. "Looks like this is yet another addition to the 'really damn weird' category."


	4. Spy

Later that night, Yuri sat in the kitchen. Judith, Karol, and Repede had already headed to bed, but Yuri wasn't ready to retire yet.

"Good news," Raven said on his way back to the island counter. "I found something alcoholic."

Yuri swivelled on the stool. "It's not more wine, is it?"

"Nah, I didn't want to go back to the basement. He had a liquor cabinet just off the kitchen. Ta-da!" He planted a bottle of rum and a pair of glasses on the counter. "You're ok with drinking it plain, right?"

"Pour away."

Raven passed him a small glass and then sat on the other side of the island. "So, how ya feelin'?"

Yuri took a sip and then wiggled his shoulders. "Still kinda sore, and ready to never go near a bookshelf again."

"Bet you're at least a little glad ta have an excuse ta turn Estelle down when she tries ta convince you to borrow one of her books."

Yuri smirked. "Yeah, that's something. You know, as terrible as it is what happened to Melanie, I'm finding it difficult to scrounge up sympathy for her."

"Nearly bein' murdered will do that to a guy."

After taking a sip of rum, Yuri said, "It is pretty screwed up, though. Do you think she's angry because she didn't get a proper burial?"

"I'd buy it. I'm hopin' getting her body taken away tomorrow will put her to rest."

The day's rain had finally stopped, and Yuri hoped things remained dry so the mortician could come. Getting that skeleton out of the house would be a huge relief. They were going to stay one more night after her body was removed to make sure she was pacified, but he was hoping they could head home the day after tomorrow. "I feel bad for Cyril, though. From the sounds of his journal, she started haunting him right after she died. No wonder he never got over it."

Raven swished rum around his glass, staring into it. "Hm… not necessarily. I know he said he kept seeing her around right after she died, but that might not be anythin' supernatural."

"What do you mean? I think seeing a ghost is pretty supernatural."

He took a big drink and then coughed. "I mean, he may not have meant he  _literally_  saw her. 'Cause, well, it was like that for me right after the Great War, too. I kept seein' Casey everywhere. Ever young woman with long, dark hair I passed had her face. Every voice from across the room was hers. She wasn't hauntin' me or anythin', my mind just… was so desperate to see her again, it filled her in when she wasn't there."

Yuri just nodded. He couldn't say he fully related, but during the weeks he'd thought Estelle was gone for good, every little thing had reminded him of her and left his chest heavier than before. "I get it. How long would you say that stage lasts? I mean, at what point did his visions of Melanie turn from a longing heart to an actual ghost?"

Raven shrugged. "Hard ta say. Honestly, I still see Casey sometimes. Not often, but when the Great War is on my mind and I can't get her out of my thoughts…." He took another drink. "Since we got here, for example. When I heard that voice talk ta me the first night, my head filled in Casey's face even though I'm bettin' it was Melanie. All this talk of death and lost loved ones has stirred up a lot of memories I'd rather keep un-stirred."

Yuri usually tried not to think too much about the people he'd killed, but earlier today he'd found himself dwelling on Cumore again. His hand found its way to his chest and massaged the line of bruises. "I know how that is."

Raven eyed him for a moment. "Seems ta me like your closet's skeletons have left you shaken, not stirred."

Yuri snorted and took a drink. "Do you think ghosts can… I don't know, look at souls or whatever? Can they tell if someone is a bad person?"

"Who can say? I don't know nothin' about ghosts. Why?"

"Melanie tried to kill me. I got a real bad feeling about the presence in the basement the other day, too, and the first night, I'm certain I heard something calling my name. None of the rest of you guys have come under any real danger, and there's no evidence that Melanie was an evil person. So, what if the reason she seems to be focusing her wrath on me is that she feels like I deserve it? Maybe she only targets villains." After years of wondering whether his actions dragged him over the line and officially made him a bad person, having it confirmed by a vigilante ghost would be both comforting and disheartening.

Raven scoffed. "You're no villain, Yuri."

Yuri took another drink to put off responding. "Maybe. I don't want to think I am, but after some of the things I've done… well, if the boot fits."

Raven held up his hands in a shrug. "Does it matter? You've done what you've done. That's never gonna change, so who cares if ya 'qualify' as an official shitty person?"

"I guess so." Raven was right; it really didn't matter. Changing what label applied to him wouldn't change his past actions, so as long as he didn't hurt people for no reason and followed his own moral code, that should be enough. But, it  _did_  matter, even if he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

"Besides," Raven trailed his finger around the rim of his glass. "If Melanie's wrath just comes down ta whose hands are the reddest, well…my hands are more thoroughly red than a librarian."

Yuri shook his head. "Nah, that was Schwann."

Raven smiled slightly. "Sure, kid.

"Besides, Schwann just following orders. I chose my own actions."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure bein' a coward is much better. But hey, you did what you had to."

Rum burned Yuri's throat on the way down. "That's what I tell myself. The world can be an ugly place. It's better that bad people take care of the other rotten eggs, so people like Flynn don't have to stoop to their level and get their hands dirty. The world needs bastards like us, so that the good men can remain good."

"Maybe you and I ain't good men, but you know what? I think a good man has the potential to be even more dangerous than a straight-up villain. A bad guy knows he's bad, and if he's got any sense of morals, well, we keep that scumminess in check. A good man is so sure of his own morality he never checks for corruption within. He can go ta his grave thinkin' he's a good man and no counter arguments will stick. Alexei's a primes example of that."

Yuri thought about this for a moment. "You think it's a good thing to be a bad person?"

Raven's glass hit the counter with a clink. "I'm sayin' that sometimes, dirty deeds gotta be done and I'd rather they were done by someone who doesn't think they become  _good_  deeds just 'cause he's the one doin' 'em. At least your choices were for the greater good – I was just followin' orders."

Thinking about just how long Raven had done shitty things while serving Alexei, Yuri had to admit he felt a bit better. Not because he felt more justified, but because if Raven could be so carefree and leave all that crap behind, so could Yuri. His murders had been only a little over two years ago – of course they still weighed more heavily on his mind.

"Hey, I can tell you're still upset about this." He finished off his glass and pushed it away. "What's done is done. Ya can't take back the past, so don't let it take over and concentrate on the now."

Yuri nodded slowly and finished off his own glass. "That's a good way to-" piano music stopped him short. Soft notes trickled to the kitchen from the other side of the house, playing the same song they'd heard in the basement. Rather than freaking out, Yuri just rolled his eyes. "Not again. Let's go check it out. Maybe we can tell her to go the hell to sleep."

Yuri was more annoyed than frightened, but he did stay on guard. It wasn't lost on him that she'd tried to kill him earlier today, so they crept toward the music room with caution. The closer they got, the more clear the notes became. The simplistic, cheerful melody seemed out of place in the dark, spooky house. There had to be some reason she was obsessed with this song, and Yuri was sure he'd figure it out if he could just place the damn thing.

"Where is this song from?" he whispered to Raven.

"Huh? I've never heard it before. Why, have you?"

"Pretty sure I have. The tune is familiar but I can't think of the lyrics or where I heard it, and it's driving me mad."

"Probably got turned inta a drinkin' song and you only heard the lyrics when drunk."

"Heh, could be."

They stopped talking when they got close to the music room. In the dark, Yuri stubbed his toe on a table in the study and stopped himself from swearing. His nose tickled from stirred up dust, but his ears concentrated on the pretty little song.

His fist closed on the cold doorknob, and the notes cut off. Yuri flung the door open, but found nothing but curtains swaying from a sudden movement. "Damn, we missed her."

"Maybe that's just as well, considerin' she doesn't seem ta like you."

"Yeah, true. Eh, let's head to bed for now. The mortician is coming tomorrow; hopefully she'll go to sleep then."

* * *

The next day, Tolbyccia summoned enough energy to shake off the clouds and give the sun a chance to shine. Specks of dust swam through bars of light filtering through the windows. Pavel arrived with a pair of morticians around noon, and while they went upstairs to deal with Melanie, Yuri and the others spoke with Pavel in the main hall.

"So…" Pavel said softly, glancing around, "you do believe me, right? This place really is haunted?"

Yuri planted his hand on his hip. "This place has enough spirits it could convert the entire world into mana."

Pavel bit his lip. "Ah. That's… that's what I thought."

"We think the ghost of Melanie is haunting the house because she's angry she didn't get a proper burial," Karol explained. "Hopefully she'll be put to rest after you take her away."

"Yes, hopefully." Pavel glanced longingly at the front door. "You guys haven't figured out what that weird door on the second floor leads to, have you?"

"Not yet," Judith said. "It doesn't seem to be dangerous, at least. Of all the weird things in this house, it's caused us the least trouble."

Pavel's eye twitched. "Um… uh… pardon? What things have given you trouble?"

"Nothing," Yuri said before Judith could terrify him further. "We've just had a few spooky sightings, that's all."

Ten minutes later, the morticians returned with a stretcher bearing a lump under a white sheet. They stopped in front of Pavel and one said, "We got the lady."

"Oh, good." Pavel straightened up and tried to act like the man of the house. "Did you have any problems?"

"Nah," the mustachioed mortician said. "Who was it you said owned this here house?"

"Ah, it was my great-uncle through marriage."

"Whelp. He was fucked up."

The other mortician, whose face was tragically sans moustache, nodded sagely. "Pretty darn effed up."

"Uh, yes. He was certainly strange. You've taken care of… it?"

Moustache nodded and gestured his elbow at the stretcher they carried. "A-yup. Come on down to the funeral parlour and we'll get the lady here an overdue burial."

"Great. Thanks a lot." To Karol, he asked, "You're staying another night, right?"

Karol bobbed his head. "Yeah, that's right. We want to make sure removing her body really will fix the problem."

"I can't thank you enough for being so diligent."

Karol beamed the way he always did when Brave Vesperia did a job well done. "We're happy to help!"

"Hope you have a safe night."

* * *

Yuri had a nightmare that night. It wasn't about haunted houses or ghosts in black hallways as he might have expected, but an old standard about Ragou. In his dream, a new magistrate took over control of Capua Torim who even worse. Yuri argued with him that it wasn't fair, that he'd dirtied his hands to get rid of Ragou and it wasn't right for an even worse guy to take his place. The new magistrate, who was so evil he had pointed teeth and a curly moustache, took his protestations as a confession of murder and sentenced him to death.

He ran out of the magistrate's mansion and suddenly he was in Flynn's office, but when he asked for help, Flynn told him there was nothing he could do and that he deserved it anyway. He ended up killing the new magistrate as well, but when he tried to high-five Flynn, there was so much blood on his hands it got everywhere and wouldn't wash off no matter what he did. Finally the Knights caught up with him and sentenced him to death, and the next thing he knew, he was standing on a plank looking down at shark-infested water. Blood dripped from his hands and riled them up, while Flynn looked on with a sorrowful face.

 _I can't protest_ , he thought as he hummed a little song while teetering on the edge of the plank.  _I dug my own grave, and I now I have to lie in it._

He didn't want to get eaten sharks, and he especially didn't want to see Estelle in the crowd that surrounded the shark pool cheering for his death. Ragou himself stood at the other and of the plank with a sword, urging him to jump.

Yuri closed his eyes and let the melody soothe him. A soft hand pushed his hair behind his ears and hummed a sweet song that took him far away from the sharks and blood. Fingers trained gently across his cheek to physically tell him everything would be all right.

And then he awoke and felt pretty stupid about being afraid of sharks, even though his hands did still feel sticky from blood. He could still feel a hand on his face, too, gently caressing him while humming that sweet song Melanie insisted on playing. What a weird –

There  _was_  still a hand on his face. His eyes opened with a jolt and took in a woman standing over him. For a moment, he couldn't move. He gazed into pale eyes set in a paler face and a chill spread through his skin from the icy points of her fingers. Melanie's hum faded out, and finally Yuri kicked himself into gear.

With a shout, he threw his arm out. His fist passed through her and she disappeared like smoke. Bolting upright, he whipped his head around the room to make sure she was really gone.

"Yuri?" Karol sat up as well. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"She was here." His heart still struggled to slow and he shivered from the cold still radiating through his cheek.

Judith looked around. "I think she's gone now, at least."

Repede growled, but from his posture he didn't seem to think there was any danger in the room.

"Who was keeping watch?" Yuri asked. "Someone should have seen her." He hugged himself to dispel the cold Melanie had brought. Just thinking about her creeping over him made his stomach squirm. There had been something very intimate in the way she caressed him, and he wasn't comfortable getting that kind of touch from a stranger, let alone a dead woman.

Karol peered around the room. "I woke Raven up for his turn to keep watch about an hour ago. Where is he?"

They sat in silence. Even though the room was dark, it was small enough that Yuri was sure they'd see Raven if he was in here. Besides, as soon as he heard them talking, the old man would have piped in. "He probably went to the bathroom." It felt hollow even as he said it.

"Yeah," Karol murmured. "He'll be back any time now."

"While we wait, what exactly happened, Yuri?"

"I was having a weird dream." His eyes drifted around the room as he spoke, almost expecting a boogeyman to burst out of the closet at any second. "I woke up to find her ghost standing over me, humming her annoying song and stroking my face."

"That's weird," Karol said. "I thought she wanted to hurt you?"

Yuri shrugged. "Maybe she changed her mind."

Silence reigned again. Outside, Yuri heard a pitter-patter as rain began again.

After five minutes, Karol said, "Raven sure is taking a long time in the bathroom."

No one earnestly believed that was where Raven was. "I'm going to search the house."

"I'll go with you," Judith said, getting out of bed. "I don't think anybody should be alone in this house."

"Good plan. Repede, wait here with Karol in case Raven comes back and worries about us. Hold down the fort, Captain."

"Got it." Karol did an admirable job of sounding confident even though his eyes were clearly terrified.

Yuri and Judith both brought their weapons, even though Yuri wasn't sure what use it would be. His attempt to punch Melanie had been as effective as grabbing fog. It wasn't often a monster honestly frightened Yuri, but it also wasn't often he encountered something he physically couldn't fight.

Yuri carried the lamp, so he tied his sword to his belt to give him a spare hand. The flame flickered and made shadows jump as they walked along the twisted halls. Every time a shadow moved, Yuri's hand twitched for his sword. Sometimes it was just a trick of the light, and other times…. Yuri decided not to question the shadows that darted out of sight after he caught them in the corner of his eye.

He raised his arm and light fell across a floor-length curtain fluttering in an absent wind. "Old Man?" he called softly. "That you?" He didn't actually expect it to be.

The curtain fell still, and Judith kept walking. Yuri's eyes darted to the curtain as they passed, but it sat still. There was no point dwelling on what might have made it flutter, and he didn't even comment on the hushed whispers drifting through the halls, barely loud enough to be heard.

Downstairs, they wandered the maze of rooms. Yuri half-expected to hear Melanie in the music room again, but even the piano was silent tonight. They drifted from room to room, checking in cupboards and under tables, just in case. Maybe Raven was being an asshole and playing a poorly timed game of hide and seek.

They still hadn't found anything by the time they reached the kitchen. They'd left that for last, because while searching the rest of the house, Yuri had let himself hold onto the hope that they'd find him sitting down there, enjoying a night cap. Something flashed when they walked in and Yuri's taut nerves snapped, sending his hand flying to his sword. It took at least three full seconds to realize a swaying tree outside had let a brief beam of moonlight reflect off a decanter.

Yuri's eyes drifted to the door to the basement and with a thud of his heart, he remembered where Cyril's body had been found. He met Judith's eyes and saw the same realization. "You stay here," Yuri whispered. "In case the door jams again."

She nodded tightly. "Give a shout if you run into trouble."

The old hinges complained as he pried the door open, and then he took careful steps down the rotting wooden steps. The temperature dropped as he descended, but he told himself that was because he was heading underground. Other than his lamp, the basement was pitch black. He couldn't even hear the rain down here. Gripping the lamp like a weapon, he opened the first door to the servant's bedroom, just to be thorough. Nothing.

To combat the suffocating silence and force his heartbeat out of his throat, he softly called, "Old Man? Hey… if you're down here, this isn't funny." He checked the linen closet, because he  _might_  be there, right? He kept going down the hall, skipping the silver room with a throb of his heart. Check that one last. He didn't really want to find Raven in there.

Storage rooms, servant rooms, eating rooms… no Raven rooms. He ought to get out of here soon; staying tense for this long couldn't be healthy. Every time a rat scurried away from his lamp he resisted the urge to whip his sword out and use the most powerful arte he knew. Raven wasn't down here, unless…

He took a deep breath to steel himself and headed for the silver room. The silhouette stained into the ground wormed into his mind. No, that was  _not_  where he was going to find Raven… hopefully. His hand hesitated on the doorknob. Was it colder, or was he just sweating? The light swayed; with annoyance he realized his hand trembled.  _Stop putting it off._ He pushed the door open and forced him look.

Nothing. Taut muscles melted with relief. Briefly, he considered the old days, when Raven was nothing but the sketchy stranger who popped in now and again. He never thought he'd once again be so happy to not find Raven.

He hurried back to the kitchen. After the dark of the basement, even the dim moonlight that made it through the clouds and dusty windows was bright. Judith gave him a look and he replied with a terse head shake.

Yuri had harboured a pessimism about their chances since leaving the bedroom, but by the time they made their way back upstairs, he had no illusions that they were going to find Raven hiding in a closet. They had to face the reality that Raven was missing, and he hadn't the faintest idea where he might have gone.

"He wouldn't be outside, would he?" Judith asked, pausing at a window.

"I doubt it." The rain steadily picked up the pace and the forest behind the house shook in the wind. Outside was cold, dark, and miserable and he couldn't imagine anyone heading out in the dead of night for a stroll.

They moved on, careful to stay close together. Yuri couldn't shake the feeling that if he stepped beyond the island of light made by the lamp, the shadows would swallow him up just like they seemed to have done to Raven.

"He can't have just vanished." Judith kept her voice low. Logically, there wasn't anyone to worry about waking, but neither of them were willing to shout out for Raven.

 _What am I afraid of?_  They tip-toed around like intruders, even though they'd been invited to stay here. A presence hung over the house that he instinctively didn't want to disturb. "That's right," he muttered back. "At the very least, we should be able to find a body."

They'd search the first floor and found nothing, and there was no sign of Raven on the top floor, either. Raven was not in the house, and they could hope they'd find him outside tomorrow when it was light enough to search the grounds, but Yuri didn't have nearly enough hope to charge out there in the black of night and stumble through soaking weeds trying to find clues.

Those damn whispers picked up again, and the hairs on the back of Yuri's neck prickled. He could feel something watching him, but no matter how fast he whirled around, all he ever caught was a curtain swaying like someone had recently run past it.

Getting back to the bedroom to report to Karol was the plan, but they got turned around in the confusing hallways. Somehow or another, they found themselves passing the short hall that led to the locked door. Yuri turned to face it, and the unsettling feeling of being watched spiked. They hadn't looked for Raven behind that door.

Yuri barely registered that the whispers had stopped. His hair fluttered in a breeze flowing toward the door. The warmth of Judith standing beside him provided more comfort than he'd like to admit. He hadn't survived so many battles with monsters by ignoring his instincts and right now a strong voice told him to run the hell away, as intrinsically as a deer knew to flee a hunter. Repede had sensed that this door was bad news the day they arrived and he could feel it himself now. With every step toward it, his stomach tied in knots. Raven might be on the other side; he had to at least try to open it.

He handed the lamp to Judith and jiggled the doorknob. When he pulled his hand away in defeat, it slipped with sweat. Breathing was difficult through the tightness of his chest and he couldn't shake the self-consciousness of feeling eyes boring into him. Their gas lamp provided a warm light, but he suddenly missed the steadier glow of a blastia because the flame kept flickering and making shadows shift.

He eyed the keyhole, but Karol had already tried to pick the lock. Damn, where had those whispers gone? He never thought he'd miss them, but since he  _knew_  something was still around and watching them closely, he'd prefer if it made some noise. At least that way he could almost tell where it was coming from.

Raven  _had_  to be around here. People didn't just vanish into thin air. If they could figure out what was behind this damn door! Yuri crouched and pressed his eye against the keyhole, trying to make out anything. All he saw on the other side was darkness.

The complete silence and stillness of the house made Judith's breathing sound out of place. Surely he should be able to see  _something_  on the other side of the door. He shifted his weight to his other knee and Judith's light flashed across the keyhole. He could have sworn the light illuminated something on the other side. He pressed his face right against the hole, squinting to make it out. The light had reflected off something on the other side, but what had it been? A window? A sword? He stared into a dark so deep it brought to mind fanged creatures lurking in the inky depths of the ocean.

And then the darkness blinked.

Yuri jerked backward like he'd been burned. "There's something there!" He whipped out his sword and rammed the blade under the door, hoping to catch the feet of whoever… no,  _what_ ever had been staring back at him. The blade swished through empty space. Judith set the lamp down and adopted a fighting stance, bracing herself for anything to come through the door. Yuri wiggled his sword a few more times before accepting nothing was there… anymore.

He pulled it out, hands shaking. Judith slowly lowered her spear and picked up the lamp again, and the light passed over Yuri's blade. "What did you see?"

Yuri stood and sheathed his sword. He took several deep breaths, letting himself calm down now that the feeling of being watched faded away. Whatever had been spying on them through the door seemed to have run away - for now, at least. The real question was, where did it run  _to_? It had to still be in the house somewhere. He shuddered; it might be in the same place Raven was. "There was…  _something_  watching us from the other side."

Judith grimaced. "It's gone now?"

"Seems to be."

"All right… let's head back to bed and report to Karol. There's nothing else we can do tonight."


	5. The Room That Doesn't Exist

The next morning, Raven was still missing. Yuri hadn't expected him to turn up, but it was disheartening. Not knowing what else to do, they searched the house once more, saying they might have better luck in daytime. The search turned up nothing, even when Yuri forced himself to check the keyhole of the mystery door once again. Repede sniffed so much he couldn't stop sneezing from the dust, but after a couple of hours they had to admit defeat.

After determining he definitely wasn't anywhere in the house, they headed outside to search the grounds. At least there was fresh air out here, and it wasn't even raining anymore. The sky wasn't exactly blue and sunny, but even grey was better than pouring rain. Searching the grounds took ages, admittedly because they wanted to put off going back inside the house. There was no sign of him out here, either. They called their search to a close when Yuri slumped on a tree stump at the back of the house. The forest stretched out behind them, and Yuri briefly wondered if they should search the forest for Raven. They had no reason to believe the supernatural crap in the house extended into the forest, and besides, they didn't have the resources to search it. If they had an entire brigade of searchers… maybe.

"Where could he have gone?" Karol collapsed to the ground, stretched out his legs and stared morosely at the house.

Judith leaned against a tree with her arms crossed. "It's as if the house simply swallowed him up."

Yuri glared at the house, which had the gall to look innocent from the outside. From out here, it just looked like a dilapidated home overgrown with weeds and ivy. But inside… Yuri hated to admit it, but this stupid house had given him more frights than he'd experienced in a long time. He thought of himself as someone difficult to scare, but peering through that keyhole last night before realizing something was staring straight back had shaken him.

"Do you think he's ok?" Karol asked.

"Yeah, 'course he is." Yuri said it, but he didn't fully believe it. He certainly  _hoped_  Raven would be ok, but uncertainty weighed on his mind.

They sat in silence. The trees rustled in a chilly breeze. Repede's tail idly flicked back and forth.

"I remember the last time Raven went missing." Karol hung his head. "You know… with Estelle."

Yuri minutely straightened his slouch. "Yeah… but this isn't like that. Raven left on purpose that time."

"We're sure he didn't this time?" Judith threw out. It wasn't accusing, but Yuri still felt like a shitty friend to even toy with the idea.

"No way!" Karol stared at her with a stubborn set to his jaw. "He was different then. Raven wouldn't do that to us now."

"I don't think so either." It had taken Yuri a long time to be able to fully trust Raven, but after all this time, he felt Raven had earned it.

Karol pulled his knees in and wrapped his arms around them. "I'm trying not to worry. Raven's tough, and I know he wouldn't want us to freak out over him. I just… I'm really worried. I know it sounds dumb, but… I kind of think of you guys as my family, and I worry a lot if I think you're in trouble."

Yuri and Judith turned their eyes on Karol, though neither said anything.

Karol pulled his legs closer and his cheeks turned rosy. "I lost my parents when I was really little, and after that I just skipped between guilds all my life. Then you guys came along, and it's like we're a little family. I don't know what I'd do if I lost this family, too. I'm sorry, that probably sounds really childish."

After a lengthy pause, Judith said, "I think it's sweet. You know, ever since my parents died, I've thought of Ba'ul as my only family. Now that you mention it, though, I suppose the rest of you fill that role quite well."

Judith and Karol both turned to Yuri, waiting for him to say something. Yuri just shrugged. "The closest I have to a family is the whole lower quarter. I've counted you guys as part of that group for ages."

Repede barked, and Yuri looked down with a grin. Scratched his head, he said, "That's right, and Repede is especially close family. Karol, in your little family, what role does everyone have?"

"Huh? Well…" He looked around at the trees, trying to find a way to avoid answering. "Ok, well, Raven is the dad."

Yuri feigned outrage. "The old man!? I should be the dad."

Karol gave him a deadpan look. "No, you're the goofy older brother."

Yuri crossed his arms. "I'm very offended, you know."

Judith leaned forward a bit. "Oh, what am I?"

"You're the older sister, and Rita is the other sister… the grouchy one who hits me a lot. And Estelle is the mom."

"That's weird," Judith said. "I'm older than my mother?"

Karol rubbed his neck. "Ah… well, it doesn't make perfect sense. Estelle is always trying to make sure we're ok. I don't remember my mom very well, but that's what I think a mom should be like."

"And what about the old man?" Yuri asked. "You think he's what a dad should be like?"

Karol shrugged. "Well… not exactly the ideal dad. He's really nice, though, and he's fun and he cares about us. He sort of reminds me of my dad, at least as much as I remember him."

Judith looked to the sky. "He's certainly very different from my father."

Yuri looked over at her. "Your father was a studious inventor. That's about as different from the old man as I can imagine."

Repede barked and wagged his tail, and Yuri said, "Repede says he's nowhere near as cool as his father was."

"What about you, Yuri?" Karol asked. "What was your dad like?"

"My dad?" Yuri whipped his head back around to Karol, but he didn't know what to say. The other three all had memories to share, but when it came to his own father… Yuri shrugged. "Who knows? Never met the guy."

"Oh, right." Karol's face fell. "Well, what have you been told about him?"

"Nothing. Honestly, I don't even know what his name was. If Hanks or anybody knew who knocked my mom up, they never told me. My mom was a prostitute, so she slept with a lot of people." Yuri didn't think about his parents often, because there was nothing to think about. Everyone in his group of friends had lost their parents, so it wasn't often that he felt left out. Only when the others start talking about their parents did he feel like he was missing something, because they all had memories to hold onto and he didn't even have that. Though he didn't consciously think about it often, over the course of twenty years, a tiny grain of wondering grew into a firm curiosity at the back of his mind that bothered him when he forced himself to notice it.

"Oh… I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"It's not a big deal. A lot of girls become prostitutes in the lower quarter."

Judith thought for a moment. "So, your father could be  _anyone_  in Zaphias."

"I guess so, yeah."

"Or even someone just passing through Zaphias," Karol pointed out.

"What if your father was a noble?" Judith suggested.

Yuri wrinkled his nose. "Don't even suggest it. My blood's perfectly red, thank you very much. Not a drop of blue."

"Ohhh," Judith's eyes lit up with an idea. "How old is Raven and when did he go to Zaphias to join the Knights?"

Yuri balked so badly he nearly fell off the stump. "I'm not even going to consider that one."

Karol laughed. It was good to hear him laugh after the stress of the past few days. "I think Raven's just a little too young for that, Judy. Knowing Yuri, he was probably some hot-headed adventurer who ran off to fight monsters."

"Yeah, that's what I've always figured." Honestly, he preferred to think that his father had been a drifter stopping in town only briefly. It was better than the paranoia of glancing at every man of a certain age in the city and wondering. "Way better option than Raven would be."

"But still…" Karol's smile faded. "I do hope we find Raven soon."

Yuri stood up. "Don't worry. I'm sure we will."

* * *

Later, they were back in the house. It was obvious that removing Melanie's body hadn't done the trick, so they went back to the drawing board. They sat around the living room, trying to brainstorm ideas. After an hour of this, they hadn't come up with a single theory to explain why Melanie wouldn't leave them alone.

Yuri's mind drifted to other topics while he was supposed to be figuring out Melanie. Namely, it drifted to Karol. The boy sat on the couch near him, and it wasn't lost on Yuri that Karol had stayed close to his side ever since returning to the house. He also hadn't been able to avoid noticing how often Karol lay awake shaking and flinching at every noise while they shared a bed.

"I've been thinking," he announced.

"We all have been," Judith pointed out. "Did you come up with a Melanie theory?"

"No, not that. I think we're in over our heads at this point. It might be time we ask for reinforcements."

"What?" Karol looked up at him. "Brave Vesperia has always handled our missions on our own! We can't ask another guild for help - we'd lose our reputation."

"I don't mean another guild. Karol, I think you should head to Zaphias and explain what's going on to Estelle and Flynn. They'd want to know what's going on, and if Rita is in town, even better. We're pretty stumped, but Rita's a genius. I bet she could figure something out."

"You'd ask Flynn for help?" Judith raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Yuri grimaced. "It's not ideal. I know he's busy and I don't want to bug him, but this isn't just a spooky house anymore. Raven is missing and we need to do everything we can to find him. Maybe with a small regiment of knights, we can search the woods or even tear this house apart stick by stick until something shows up."

Karol nodded slowly. "Yuri is right. We need to use every available resource to find Raven, so we should contact Flynn."

"Right," Yuri said. "So, Captain, since you're the boss, you should be the one to go-"

"No." He gave Yuri a stubborn look. "I'm not leaving you guys here alone. I know I'm scared, but… but I'm not going to run away from this. I'm the boss of this guild, so I'm going to see this mission through to the end. Yuri, write a letter to Flynn. Tomorrow, go to Dahngrest to mail it and check in with Pavel to let him know the situation isn't resolved."

Yuri watched him for a moment, and then smiled at his resolve. "You got it, boss."

Yuri found paper and a pen in the first floor study. It was dusty, and he thought of the nice fresh pens sitting on the desk upstairs, but rejected that idea. After nearly being crushed to death in that room, he would prefer to avoid it. Writing implements in hand, he sat down in the kitchen to write his letter.

_Hey Flynn,_

_What's up? You holding down the fort in Zaphias? I'm sure Estelle is making sure you're getting enough sleep. Seriously, you're so obsessive. Take a day off every now and then you loser. Oh, weren't you going to help Hanks fix the leak in his roof? If it can wait until next month, I can help you._

_All friendliness aside, I actually have a serious reason for writing you. The truth is… ok, I hate admitting it, but I think I could use your help. Here's the situation: we got a mission from this kid called Pavel. He recently inherited a house, but was afraid it was haunted. Sounds like kid stuff, right? But then we got here and guess what? It's really damn haunted. I'm talking phantom pianos, slamming doors, and ghostly apparitions. These aren't like undead monsters, it's a real dead woman lurking in this house. The trouble is, she doesn't seem to like us. I don't want to go into too many details, but I've already been attacked by her (stop freaking out - I'm fine). Here's where it gets really bad, though: Raven's missing. He was with us when we went to bed, but I woke up in the middle of the night and he was nowhere to be seen. We've searched the house and the grounds and not found a single clue._

_This house is fucked up, Flynn. I don't know where Raven is or why the ghost won't go away. I'm really not sure what to do, to be honest. I don't like asking for your help and I know you're really busy, but I could use a hand._

_Also, if you could get Rita over here, that would be great, too. I'm sure as soon as you mention we're in trouble Estelle will start packing her bag, so make sure you reassure her that the rest of us are fine. I'll give you more details when you get here._

_See you (hopefully) soon,_

_Yuri_

* * *

Yuri walked to Dahngrest that afternoon. He went alone, leaving Repede to keep watch back at the house. Repede obviously wanted to leave, but after Raven had already gone missing, the more people sticking together at the house, the better. He glared at the sky as he walked, just daring it to rain. The afternoon was cool and the air damp, but he hadn't realized how suffocating the house was until he got out of it. At any given moment, the house seemed to be waiting with bated breath.

Arriving in the city, he dropped his letter at the post office and headed over to Pavel's house. When Pavel answered the door, he smiled. "Hello, Yuri. It's nice to see you again. How are things at the house?"

He looked so happy now that Melanie's body had been dealt with, and Yuri hated having to break the news to him. "They're not good."

Pavel's face fell. "Oh. You'd better come in."

He lived in sparse surroundings, with old furniture and unpainted walls. Certainly he had a lot to gain by selling the house. Yuri sat on a threadbare sofa while Pavel paced around the room a couple of times before finally settling in a creaky wooden chair. "It's not over, is it?"

"No. It's not."

Pavel let out a long exhale and placed his hands on his knees. "Ok. What happened?"

"One of our guys is missing. Raven, you know him? He's friends with Harry Whitehorse."

Pavel bobbed his head. "Oh, yes, I know him. Well, I know  _of_  him. We've never met… anyway, what do you mean missing?"

"I mean he just vanished into thin air. I don't know how to explain it or what this means, but I think, somehow… the house took him."

Pavel shuddered. "Took him? But… where?"

Yuri shrugged. "That's the thing. I have no clue. I want to believe he's not dead, since we haven't found a body like Cyril's."

"You think Cyril's death is related to this? Didn't he just die of old age, though?"

"So they say. I have a feeling it had something to do with that weird door." Coincidences did happen, but when a friend's life might be on the line, he wasn't going to chalk anything up to one. Cyril's body had been found directly below the door; that had to mean _something_.

Pavel's face filled with fear at the mere mentioned of the door. "I honestly don't know anything about it. I found it the time I visited and it creeped me out. I can't put my finger on it, but just being in view of it filled me with dread. Like… like I was being watched."

Yuri nodded slowly. "Yeah, I get that too." Pavel didn't need to know something was literally watching through it. Yuri didn't even like thinking about that, and he wasn't half as skittish as Pavel.

"I don't know why Melanie is still bothering you." Pavel shuffled his feet, looking down. "She was buried this morning. Her soul should be at peace. I don't know what else could be keeping her at the house."

Yuri sighed. "I don't know either. Well, that's all I had to say. We're not giving up on this case, you know. It's taking a bit longer than I expected, but we'll figure it out."

After he left Pavel's place, Yuri didn't want to return to the house right away. He felt guilty leaving Karol, Judith, and Repede alone out there, but the busy streets of Dahngrest were such a comforting change from the stagnant house. As he walked, he pondered that damn door. Who had built it? Was it always there? If Cyril had had it built, why? And why wasn't it on the blueprints? Perhaps most importantly of all, what sort of room was on the other side? The house had a room for every conceivable activity, so which one was that room intended for? It had to be narrow, because there were rooms on either side of the hallway it was squished between, and on the other side the hall dead-ended on its back wall down another short stretch of corridor. The room couldn't be more then four feet wide and a few feet long - really it was more like a glorified closet. Why would anyone build a random closet cutting off a hallway? The scale just didn't make sense.

Yuri paused, watching a cart trundle along the road heading to the market. An idea itched at the back of his brain. He had no idea how this idea would work or what it would mean, but on a whim he steered himself back to the Brave Vesperia building. There was something he needed to get.

* * *

Yuri arrived back at the house by early evening. Judith had just finished cooking dinner, so he sat down to eat before checking his hunch. Part of this was because he knew if he was right, he was going to be a lot more unhappy than he already was. Over a dinner of pork chops and applesauce, Yuri filled the others in on what he'd discussed with Pavel. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

Karol scowled. "If by 'interesting' you mean 'really creepy', then yeah."

Yuri's fork paused. "You guys are ok?"

"Nothing dangerous," Judith assured him. "A bunch of doors kept slamming, but that's it."

"I love how we're reached a point where doors slamming on their own is 'no big deal'."

"I read more from Cyril's journal," Judith said.

"Oh, yeah? Find anything interesting?"

Judith shook her head with a frown. "No. Most of it didn't make sense. He has pages and pages rambling about how Melanie isn't dead and all the fun things they're going to do once she recovers and gets out of bed. He never explicitly mentioned the door, although there were some confusing lines about not wanting to go somewhere."

"I don't know how much we're gonna get from this guy." Yuri shook his head. "He seems to have had a lot of trouble separating fiction and reality. Speaking of that door, though, I had an idea I want to check out." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the thing he'd fetched from their office.

"What's that for?" Karol eyed the tape measure curiously.

Yuri stood. "I want to find out exactly how big the room behind that door is."

The others followed him upstairs. No doors banged now, and Yuri glared at them as he passed, daring them to start. At the end of the house was a long hallway that ran from one wall to the other, giving them a straight shot to measure the length of the house. Karol took one end of the tape and stood next to a window on the east wall, and then Yuri took off toward the west.

"Judy, mark my spot here." The house was longer than the fifty feet they had, so Judith stood exactly where Yuri had stopped and Karol ran forward to restart the measurement. When Yuri reached the west window, he checked the tape.

"Eleven feet, two inches, and the first chunk was fifty feet. So, this house is sixty-one feet, two inches wide."

"That seems normal enough," Judith said as Yuri walked back, rolling up the tape. "What did you want to check?"

"Follow me, there's something else we have to measure." Through the maze of hallways, he led them to the door – the one they always tried to avoid walking past. Across from it was a dusty bedroom. "Ok, this part is a bit more difficult. We'll have to do it in chunks. Karol, go into that bedroom and measure the distance from the far wall to this wall." He slap the wall next to the short hall leading to the door.

Karol clearly wasn't sure what Yuri was getting at, but he did as told. From the east wall of the bedroom to the start of the door's hall was twenty-three feet and four inches.

"Judy, write that down."

She pulled out a scrap of paper and jotted down the number.

"Ok, now measure from the start of this hall to the door." Yuri had Karol stand at the end of the hall as he approached the door. Honestly, he'd rather the others not get any closer to it than they had to. Repede refused to even enter the hallway and just glared at the door with his ears erect. At the door, Yuri checked the distance and then got away from it as quickly as possible. "Ten feet. Exactly."

Judith dutifully wrote this down, and then Yuri led the group away from the door and all around the building. A minute later they were in a hall parallel to the first – the one that would have been connected were it not for a random room added at the last minute to cut off the connection. They could see where the hall was supposed to link up, because there was another short stretch that stopped at a dead end.

"Ok, now here we're going from the dead end to the other side of the hall." This measured to fourteen feet, three inches. "Ok, now let's measure this bedroom to the wall and get a final total."

Karol took the tape measure to the wall and shouted, "Twenty-three feet and seven inches!"

"Good. Now, Judy, add that all up."

Judith tallied the numbers as Karol walked back to the corridor. When he arrived, she announced, "Sixty-one feet, two inches. Same as before." Looking up, she asked, "What were you trying to prove?"

Yuri, though, wasn't nearly as relaxed as the other two. His heart skipped a beat as his suspicion was confirmed, even though it shouldn't be. How could he have possibly been right about this? It didn't make any sense!

"Yuri?" Karol looked up with concern. "Is everything ok?"

Feeling sick, he said, "No. Our measurements came out even, right? What we measured here is exactly the same distance as the long hall at the end."

Karol nodded slowly, and then Judith gasped. With dawning horror, she said, "But we skipped the room in the middle. The room behind the door – we didn't measure it!"

Karol looked between them in confusion, and then to the end of the hall where the supposed room was. "Wait… but… that's right. We should be  _under_  the total because we skipped a section in the middle."

Judith stared at the numbers in alarm. "How is this possible?"

Yuri grimaced. "Let's do some more measurements."

First they redid it make sure they got the right numbers (this time confirming down to the centimetre), and then they tried measuring through other rooms and skipping other sections and then heading outside to measure it from there. Everything lined up perfectly except that door. Even if there wasn't a room on the other side and it was just a wall, there should at least be a foot missing from the total, and Yuri knew he could stick at least the length of his sword under the door. It was as if space stopped right at the door and then started up again on the other side.

After almost an hour of running around and trying to crunch the numbers into order, the group sat down in the living room in defeat.

"It just doesn't make sense," Karol said, staring glumly across the room. "How does it fit into the house? If we actually included its length, it would make the house bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, but only in that one section."

Yuri absently rubbed Repede's head, trying to figure things out. "It's like… the room doesn't even exist."

"How can it not exist?" Judith asked. "It's right there. We can see it, touch, smell it. The door is  _there_."

Karol frowned, deep in thought. "I don't get it, but the door isn't there. Like it just… squeezed itself in, making space for itself while the rest of the universe continues as normal around it."

Yuri groaned in frustration. "But how can a door and an entire wall be physically there but also not exist?!" They were looking for answers in hopes of finding Raven, but everything they discovered just raised further questions.


	6. The Quickening

Yuri carried a plate a bacon toward the stove. It was the day after discovering the door didn't fit, and a good night's sleep hadn't done anything to resolve his questions. Of course, that might be because he hadn't had a good night's sleep. With Raven gone, their shifts keeping watch became longer and even when it was his turn to sleep, Yuri struggled to relax after he glanced at the mirror across from the bed and saw a shadowy shape. His heart skipped a beat and he bolted upright, but all he saw was his own pale reflection staring back. He laid back down to go to sleep, but not before seeing a flash of skirt sweep by the crack under the door. After that, it was hard to get back to sleep, even if Repede was sitting up to keep watch.

Now groggy from a restless night, he set the plate on the counter and turned on the gas stove. With a  _crack!_  a burst of flame exploded upward. Yuri shouted and jumped back, arms whipping up to guard his face. He stumbled into the island as the fire died to a safe burn. He'd been lucky - his reflexes were keen enough to have avoided anything more than the faintest of burns on the side of his hands. Footsteps came running, and he turned around just in time to see Melanie framed in the doorway of the kitchen, a furious glare directed straight at him. A second later, she vanished.

"Yuri!" Karol burst into the room. "Are you ok? What happened?"

"I'm fine." Still a little shaky from his near-miss with the stove, he walked to the sink and held his hands under cold water. "Stove tried to kill me."

Judith approached the stove cautiously, but it the burner looked innocent enough for now. "I'll finish cooking breakfast. So far, she's only tried anything against you."

"Ok. Be careful."

Judith finished cooking breakfast in peace, and they had a quiet breakfast. As delicious as her bacon was, nobody felt very cheery when faced with Raven's continuing absence and the knowledge that the house defied the laws of physics.

They spent the rest of the day searching the library in hopes of finding a book that could shed some light on their problem. Cyril had volumes of history, mythology, and enough fantasy stories to keep Estelle busy for days, but nothing about science or the paranormal. After hours of searching, all they found were more than a few pages of paper filled with me rambling and sketches like the ones Yuri had found upstairs. At one point, several books fell off a shelf and banged Yuri's shoulders, but the only other injuries they took away were paper cuts.

The next day, they went for a walk in the woods just to take a break from the house. Yuri had never thought a dark, damp forest teeming with monsters would be a pleasant break from home, but after shadows lurking in dark corners, Yuri was relieved to have monsters he could hack to pieces. A few giant grasshoppers gave them less trouble than one dead woman, and exploring the forest was less nerve wracking than walking down the hall.

When they made it back to the house, Yuri had to force himself to walk back inside. He held the door open for the others and hesitated in the doorway. The storm clouds gathering said he didn't want to stay outside, but the oppressive atmosphere of the house made him wonder if getting drenched would be preferable.

"Home sweet home," Judith said lightly as she walked inside. "I wish the monsters in here were as fun to fight."

"No kidding," Karol grumbled. "I'd like to at least  _see_  these ghosts."

Yuri started to close the door, but then a cool breeze tickled the back of his neck and it slammed the rest of the way shut. He whipped his hand out of the way just in time to avoid losing a few fingers.

"Whoa!" Karol shouted.

"It's fine." Yuri stepped away from the door, protectively holding the hand he'd nearly crushed. "Geeze, what were we just saying about wanting to see these ghosts?"

"I wonder why Yuri is the only one who seems to be antagonized by the spirits?" Judith frowned, eyeing Yuri like she could spot a ghost magnet hiding under his hair.

"Wouldn't I like to know." It was like he had a gravitational pull that only affected bullshit so that his life was a never ending meteor shower of 'why is it always me?' He'd been lucky enough to not be seriously hurt so far, but their escalating frequency worried him. Melanie seemed to be ramping up her efforts and Yuri wasn't keen to see just how high things could escalate.

Over the next few days, the situation did not improve. They found no clues to Raven's whereabouts and Yuri began watching his step wherever he went. Sometimes even that didn't help, because one evening he was on his way to the bathroom when he heard a childish giggle, looked around in confusion, and then tripped over thin air. Tripping him wasn't a big deal, but when he stood in the shower the next night, the temperatures knobs spun on their own and he scrambled out of the shower half a second before the water scalded him.

Overlapping all of it was a steadily mounting hatred of Melanie's favourite song. She played it incessantly, but no matter how often they tried, they could never catch her in the act. It was like trying to poke a creature in a tide pool that disappeared into its shell the moment your hand approached. Even when she wasn't playing, her cheery little tune wouldn't leave Yuri alone. He caught himself humming it in the afternoon and playing it over and over in his head every night. He hoped that if he thought about it enough he'd remember where he'd heard it before, but so far he had nothing.

They were starting to get discouraged. After a week and a half, they still hadn't figured out why Melanie's ghost was hanging around, why she wanted to hurt them, where Raven had gone, how that door could possibly exist, or - most importantly - what they were going to do about any of this. They had more questions than answers and no leads to follow.

One morning, they sat around the table trying to enjoy a breakfast of eggs and sausage. Karol poked at his yoke without much enthusiasm, while Yuri tried once more to get the stupid melody out of his head. Repede, who hadn't slept well since they arrived, snatched a nap at Yuri's feet.

"Do you think we should sleep outside?" Judith asked out of the blue.

Yuri's head popped up. "What?"

"I don't like this house. Ba'ul doesn't like the feel of it either and would like it if I left. I told him Brave Vesperia wouldn't run away from a job, but he might have a point. There is something…  _wrong_  with this house and staying inside may not be a good idea. We could set up a tent outside."

Karol stared intently at the quivering yellow yolk, and then firmly placed his fork down. "I was thinking about that, too. This house is clearly dangerous, but I'm not sure if leaving is the solution. It's true that if we slept outside we might protect ourselves from creepy things, but if we never witness any of these things, we'll never get to the bottom of this either. We owe it to Raven and Pavel to stay close to the action until we can find a solution."

"Well said, Captain," Yuri said. "I feel the same. I'm not running away from this."

Karol looked to Judith. "If you want to leave, Judith, that's ok."

"Run away from a fight? I would never. I just wanted to share Ba'ul's suggestion."

"Where is he, anyway?" Yuri asked.

"In the area. He can't help us much since he can't fit inside the house, so he's off on his own until we're done."

"I don't suppose he has any idea where Raven is?" Karol asked. "There's not some ancient Entelexeia knowledge about the undead or anything?"

Judith tilted her head. "Hm… I don't think so. He never mentioned it, anyway."

"That's ok," Yuri said. "We'll just figure it out on our own."

Judith nodded. "That's right. I did consider writing to Rita, because if anyone can figure out how that door works it's her, but I figured she'd show up with Flynn and Estelle anyway. On the bright side, Rita will probably really enjoy the mystery of the door."

"Great," Karol grumbled. "At least someone will be happy to be here."

* * *

Yuri sat upright in bed, listening to water drip. The day's rain had ceased just as they went to bed, but water still dripped from the trees outside the window. The rain, at least, was the only sound in the shadowy room. Melanie had been playing her damn song earlier, but had thankfully given up for the night. He didn't know the exact time, but it was probably around midnight. Karol, Repede, and Judith were sound asleep, though he'd be waking Karol to take his turn keeping watch in about fifteen minutes.

They were all getting less sleep than before, now that Raven wasn't here to take a shift. Yuri hated to think about it, but what if one of the others went missing next? How long would they be able to keep switching off sleep shifts before they got too little sleep to be on their toes during the day? Perhaps that was Melanie's plan all along… pick them off one by one until only he was left and too terrified to even sleep.

It didn't feel like narcissism to assume he'd be the one left at the end, either. After everything that had happened, it seemed obvious that whatever was going on was centred around him.  _Why_  did Melanie have such a beef with him in particular? She had died long before he was even born, on a different continent, and he hadn't even known her family existed until Pavel wandered into their building. Why had she tried to crush him under a bookshelf, and why had he woken up to find her standing over him? Was it because he was the only one who recognized her song, even if he couldn't place it? Or would remembering where he knew that song from reveal why she was so interested in him?

With a sigh, he glanced at slumbering Karol. Even in his sleep, he looked nervous. Karol had come leaps and bounds from the frightened little boy they'd found in the Quoi Woods, but living in a haunted house had taken its toll and he clearly struggled to maintain his composure. Even Yuri couldn't shake the unease the house radiated like a gas. He couldn't wait until Flynn got here and they could work together to find Raven, help Melanie rest in peace, and put this whole sordid affair behind them.

He covered his mouth as a yawn hit him. Argh, can't go to sleep yet. Ten more minutes before it was Karol's turn. His eyes felt so heavy, though, and listening to the steady dripping of wet leaves wasn't nearly engaging enough to keep him up. His eyes scanned the room for a distraction, but there was nothing. The only movement came from the rise and fall of Judith's chest on the neighbouring bed. Stay awake… stay awake… his ears sought stimulation in the smothering silence of the night, but found nothing.

Until they did. Yuri's head jerked toward the door as his heart skipped a beat. Was his brain making things up to fill the emptiness, or had he actually just heard shuffling footsteps from elsewhere in the house? Holding his breath, Yuri focused on every tiny sound… and indisputably heard a bump in the night.

 _It's probably just Melanie being obnoxious again_. Still, he wouldn't feel comfortable rolling over and going to sleep, leaving Karol to deal with it. He crept out of bed and crouched, rubbing Repede's head. "Hey," he whispered, "Repede, you up?"

Repede growled and pried open an eye, giving him a questioning look.

"I need to go check something," he said in a low voice. "Keep an eye on Karol and Judy for me, ok?"

Repede woofed quietly in confirmation, and Yuri headed for the door. The hallway was silent save for his own soft steps and breaths. Even the whispering voices he'd become accustomed to were quiet, like the whole house was holding its breath. At the end of the hall, he paused. What direction was the sound coming from? He strained his ears and heard nothing but a soft gasp of air, too distant to pinpoint a direction. His feet turned right without input from his mind, leading him through the house.

 _Creak… creak… creak…_  It was impossible to move silently through this building. The unmaintained floors creaked with every step. There was no particular reason he needed to be quiet, he told himself. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling he was an animal cracking twigs in the forest with a predator lurking nearby. Goosebumps ran down his arms. Just what predator did he think was stalking him?

 _I can handle Melanie_ , he stubbornly insisted as he turned another corner without thought. This whole thing was dumb. He was just on edge because he was sleepy. She was a batty old woman who pushed a bookshelf on him and watched him sleep. After Alexei, this was nothing. He shuddered;  _it's just a cold draft._

Another corner. He wasn't even stopping to think about which turns to take now; his body seemed to know where it wanted to go. This house hadn't been maintained in years, easily explaining the cold drafts. The fact that the chill was exacerbated by the cold sweat percolating on his palms and down his back meant nothing.

Where was that sound coming from? He could still hear it in the distance, but couldn't seem to guide himself toward it. A thump, something dragging, and a shuddering gasp of air. These sounds came irregularly, but he definitely wasn't imagining it and they were coming from somewhere inside the house. But  _where -_

Without consciously planning it, he found himself once again standing at the end of the hall, facing the door that didn't exist. Even the minuscule noises from before blacked out, and Yuri dimly realized this was partly because he'd stopped breathing for a moment. He'd stood in this spot several times before, and felt the ominousness seep into the house from it. This time, the trickling unease had become a fountain of ill-tidings because there was something very different about the door: it was open.

The door hung a little more than half-open. Unable to stop himself, Yuri found his feet moving closer, like a thread had been tied around his waist and he was being reeled in. There was nothing beyond the door besides shadows, but his instincts were on fire. Deep in his gut, a primal voice told him that beyond the door was Wrong. Its wrongness offended his senses like the reek of death even though he could smell nothing but the house's usual aroma of mildew and damp wood.

He put up a hand to stop himself, fingers gripping the edge of the door. Ice spread through his hand and up his arm but he didn't dare let go. In the hazy penumbras of the doorway were stone steps leading into blackness. Except, those  _couldn't_  be there. There was nothing on the other side of this wall but more hallway and the house did not have a third floor. The mere existence of this staircase was an affront to the foundations of reality.

Everything about this door and the impossible room it contained sent powerful understanding through his gut that this was not a place he should be. Despite that, curiosity tugged. What secrets was the house hiding? Where might these stairs lead? Why did he feel like someone - or something - at the top of the stairs was calling him? The hinges creaked; his shaking hand disturbed the door.

 _Don't go up there_ , rational thought said.

_But… just a peek…_

Time stretched. Yuri motionlessly stared beyond the door as if enchanted, eyes trying to make out anything in the oppressive darkness. His feet wanted to take a step forward, just to see what was up there, while his hand remained glued to the door. Overwhelming curiosity warred with steadfast self-preservation, and he might have stood hypnotized by the door until dawn if another sound hadn't broken its hold

It sounded like someone slurping the last drags of liquid through a broken straw, and it sent a chill shuddering down his spine. A thought poked through his mind: the door being open was a great opportunity for him to go in and see what was up there… but if he could go in, something else could come  _out._  With a thick swallow, he wondered if perhaps he had more than just Melanie to blame the shuffling and slurping on.

He could almost hear the thread snap as he turned away from the door and hurried down the hall. Whatever was inside could wait until he figured out what had come out. With concerted effort, he ignored the pull trying to draw him back to the door. The farther he got from it, the more he knew going up there alone would be a spectacularly bad idea. Of course, walking toward something that sounded startlingly close to a death rattle also seemed like a spectacularly bad idea. He carried his sword, but so far having a sword had not done him much good in this house.

He focused on the sound, forcing himself to walk toward it even though something tried to draw him back to the door. It led him through the twisting hallways of the second floor and back to the grand staircase at the front of the house. He stepped around the wall and stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at the main entry hall. For a moment, he thought he'd have to start searching the first floor, too. Then he saw it.

A shadowy silhouette dragged itself across the tiles of the entry. It was human-shaped, but the way the head flopped around with a barely audible squelch made Yuri's stomach squirm. For now its back was to him, and Yuri was entirely ok with this. In the darkness, he couldn't tell if it was solid or not, but the thump and drag of every footstep certainly sounded physical.

Another rattling breath resounded through the hall, wet and strained like breathing through a broken hose. The figure stumbled, and no wonder because its gait was far from a conventional walk. Its limbs seemed broken or distorted and it left smears of some shimmery substance on the floor. Maybe it was blood, but in the low light Yuri couldn't tell what colour it was. All he knew for certain was that this figure made his knees lock and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The weight of the sword in his hand should have been comforting, but he instinctively knew physical weapons wouldn't do much to harm this… creature? Person? Being?

It took another long step, dragging its twisted foot forward. The brushing sound was almost drowned out by an accompanying breath that would be more at home in a crypt. It stopped there, facing the door and standing utterly still. Yuri's own breathing stopped, but his heart pounded so loudly it could probably hear it. This thought filled him with dread, because the only thing he knew for sure about this thing was that he did not want it to see him.

Its head twisted to the side, and Yuri's paralysis snapped just in time to dart behind the wall. He pressed himself against the wall, forcing himself to breathe softly and quietly. Had it seen him? Oh, fuck, he hoped not. Whatever it was, no living neck could possibly twist at that angle and the glimpse he'd seen before slipping behind the wall had gleamed with the same substance that he was becoming more and more sure was blood. He couldn't fight this! What was he supposed to do in the face of a monster like this?

Malevolence permeated the air. It hadn't taken a breath in a little while, either. Shit, shit, had it seen him? Yuri pondered his options. Run back to the room and get help from Karol, Judy, and Repede? That was probably his best bet; this thing was slow, he could outrun it. But if it didn't know he was here yet, tearing off down the hall would certainly alert it. He needed to check…. Yuri took a deep breath, clenched his fists until his fingernails dug painfully into his palms, and peered around the corner.

It had seen him. The figure stared without eyes, facing him now so he could see the gleaming of ghostly blood splattered down its front, the way its head lolled from side to side, the slow expansion of its chest as air whistled through its throat. It hadn't moved yet, but Yuri didn't dare turn his back on it. Afraid of making sudden movements, he dragged his sword from its sheath. Facing it now, he didn't much like the idea of running. He stepped forward and stood at the top of the stairs, glaring down at the shadowy figure and daring it to make the first move.

Ok. Ok, he could handle this. He'd faced worse, right? If could just -

It moved fast. Its limbs didn't even seem to move as it swept toward him, moving so quickly the air rushed around it. In the span of one second, Yuri raised his sword like it might actually do something, and then he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. In the next second, the creature was so close Yuri's heart nearly leapt out of his throat. Hands slammed into his back, a woman screamed, and he toppled down the stairs.


	7. Follow Me

Something was hunting him. War drums pounded in the distance, and leaves cracked as they came closer. Yuri’s every muscle was taut like a bowstring, animal instincts warning him of predators nearby. A bush rustled, and he bolted. Run, Yuri, run! His chest heaved, his legs burned, his head pounded with distant pain. The hunters were gaining, though - run, run, run! 

His head throbbed and pounded in time with his heart. He couldn’t run forever, but the thing behind him kept coming as fast as ever. It didn’t matter how quickly he ran, the malevolent force behind him would keep coming until he lay on the ground, gasping in exhaustion. A gentle song drifted through the trees, beckoning him. He didn’t know what it was, but the sweet notes sang of sunny days and and soft breezes so he dashed toward it in hope of salvation. 

Hurry, hurry… the darkness was closing in behind him and, oh, his head hurt so much…

His eyes snapped open, but even though he was certain he’d felt someone standing over him and heard her soothing voice in the millisecond between waking up and opening his eyes, the room was empty. Had he actually heard Melanie singing, or was it part of the dream?

More importantly… what the hell happened? He glanced around at the sunlight illuminating the old wallpaper of their bedroom. His skull pounded and he tenderly probed a lump on the side of his head. When had he gotten here? He struggled to remember the previous evening through his throbbing headache. That wasn’t even the end of his soreness, though. Besides the headache, the pain seemed to be concentrated in his right ankle. After lifting his neck, he saw his swollen ankle wrapped in bandages and propped up on a couple of pillows. Raising his head sent the world spinning and he heard his blood throbbing in his ears. Before letting his head fall back to the pillow, he caught a glimpse of two apple gels sat on the bedside table. His hand fumbled over and found only one gel, and he squeezed his eyes shut to try to clear the dizziness. 

Once he’d eaten the gel, his headache dimmed and he was able to take a deep breath and sit up with only moderate dizziness. As he pulled himself upright, he heard a bark and the door opened. 

“Yuri, you’re awake!” Karol burst into the room. “Are you ok?”

A smile broke through his headache. “Hey, Captain. I’m fine. What’s going on?”

Judith slipped into the room as Karol jumped on the side of the bed and Repede sat by his side. “Last night, Repede started barking like crazy and woke us up. He went tearing off toward the front of the house. When we got there, we found you passed out at the foot of the stairs. What happened?”

Oh . Passed out in front of the stairs… because someone had pushed him… because there had been some kind of monster attacking him…. Memory came back as he reverse-engineered the night. There’s been that shadowy figure that breathed funny, and before that he’d been alarmed because… because… something. He’d think of it later. “You guys didn’t see anything?” 

“Anything like what?” Karol asked.

Yuri rubbed the egg on the side of his head. “I saw a thing last night.” As succinctly as he could, he summarized the events he could remember. Judith listened calmly, while Karol’s face went paler and paler. When he reached the end, Yuri tried to sift details out of the seconds right before blacking out, but it was all a muddy mess. He knew someone had pushed him, and he could only guess it had been Melanie based on prior experience. 

“That’s the last I remember.” He massaged the side of his head, wishing Estelle was here. “Some hell-beast tried to eat me or something and then our favourite dead chick pushed me down the stairs.”

“Oh, wow, you’re really lucky, Yuri.” Karol hunched his shoulders and gave him a nervous look. “You could have broken your neck.”

“As it is,” Judith said, “your ankle is sprained. It doesn’t look too bad, though. Stay off it for a couple of days and eat some apple gels and I think it will be fine.”

“Great,” he grumbled. “That’s going to make exploring the house difficult.” What he didn’t mention was the worry in the back of his mind that he couldn’t run on a sprained ankle, and if he couldn’t do that, how could he escape if something was chasing him? He shook his head minutely - ow, damn, that made his headache worse - that had just been a weird nightmare. 

“I’ll get some crutches from town,” Judith said. “Until then, we don’t have any other leads to act on so there’s no harm in lying around for a bit.”

“I guess so.” Between his headache and sprained ankle, this was not the most restful lying around he’d ever had. That wasn’t even counting all the other bruises from his fall and the ones still remaining from getting crushed. When he figured out how to punch ghosts in the face, Melanie was going to be first in line. 

“I’m going to get going,” Judith said. “I’ll give Pavel an update and pick up some crutches and more gels from the doctor. Karol, why don’t you make breakfast?”

“Yeah, ok.” He hopped off the bed and followed Judith to the door. “Give a shout if you need anything, ok, Yuri?”

“Sure thing.”

The door closed, and as it clicked, something else clicked in Yuri’s head. Something about a door…  the door! That was it, he’d been looking at the door last night before getting attacked. His heart throbbed louder than his head when a vision of stairs stretching into darkness reached him. The room felt a little colder and he almost wished he hadn’t remembered. He must be missing something from his memory still, because what he remembered didn’t make sense. Where could the stairs lead? There was no third floor! Nothing in this house made sense, but a lot of filled him dread. He’d had a lot of close shaves in here; how much longer could he keep avoiding Melanie’s assassination attempts? And how much longer before his friends got hurt, too?

Yuri looked toward the bedroom door, frowning. Karol was going to be all alone in the kitchen. In the beginning they hadn’t wanted to leave anyone alone for safety, but that was becoming increasingly difficult. With Raven gone, him laid up with a bum ankle, and Judith out of the house until this afternoon, leaving Karol alone downstairs was the only option. Downstairs, where that shadowy monster had been. 

“Repede, go down with Karol and keep an eye on him, ok?”

Repede whined and bumped his nose against Yuri’s leg.

“Ow, hey. Yeah, I know my ankle’s busted, but I’m worried about leaving him alone down there. I’ll be fine, ok?”

Repede growled uneasily, but trusted him and trotted off after Karol. Left alone, Yuri closed his eyes and leaned back. Damn, his head hurt. This thing with his ankle was dumb, too. He experimentally rotated it, but stabs of pain stopped him short. He gritted his teeth with frustration. Really? A damned sprained ankle? He was bedridden because he fell down the stairs and sprained his ankle. He’d been injured many times in the past, and this was without a doubt the lamest story yet. He just prayed it cleared up by the time Flynn got here, or he’d never hear the end of it.

His head still hurt and there was nothing to do until Judith got back with crutches so he could at least limp around, so he closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. In the darkness of partial consciousness, his mind drifted. Just what was that thing he’d seen last night? He was certain it had come out through the door, but it seemed to be gone now. More importantly, would it come back? He remembered the way it had rushed toward him with inhuman speed, rushing up the stairs in a blur of limbs. His gut said it would have killed him, or at least seriously injured him, if it had reached him. But then there’d been that shove, pushing him forward even though his legs had been paralyzed with shock. He’d fallen, so it just missed him. It was lucky, actually, that Melanie had pushed him out of the way just in time…

The temperature in the room dropped and he shivered. A breeze gusted by his bed and when he opened his eyes, there she was. She stood at the side of his bed, gazing at his bandaged ankle quizzically. Yuri barely dared to breathe. Was she here to finish him off? Shit, he shouldn’t have sent Repede away. He considered calling out for Repede or Karol to come back, but that might startle her into action. 

She raised her head and met his eyes. Yuri stared back, not even risking a blink. He could see the floral print of wallpaper through her pale face, and her black hair fluttered in the suggestion of a breeze. Her pale blue eyes bored into him with such intensity he could feel it in his chest. Yuri took a slow breath and whispered, “What do you want?”

There was grief in her face as she raised her hand, reaching toward him. 

“I want to help you.” His voice came quietly and gently, like he was calming a skittish animal. “We want to help you rest peacefully. What is it that’s holding you here? If you explain, maybe we can help.”

Bang!

Something pounded against the wall. Yuri’s head jerked over but the action made the world spin. When he turned back to Melanie, she had vanished. A second bang arrived, closer to Yuri’s bed than the first. The temperature of the room dropped lower than ever, and the next bang came from the wall across from him, making the mirror rattle. 

“What are you doing?!” Yuri searched for any sign of her. He shivered, but was too busy worrying about the banging on the walls to try to get under the blanket. 

Antique jewellery boxes on the vanity rattled and the white curtains swayed. When his eyes slid across the mirror, a silhouette yanked his vision back. When he looked again he saw nothing but his own nervous eyes staring back. Certainty that he’d seen something gripped him, and his skin prickled with the feeling of a presence uncomfortably close to him. Logic said to get the hell out of the room, but his throbbing ankle said to take it slow and not risk damaging it further by sprinting on it without cause. A series of bangs crossed the wall, each one closer than the last. 

A flash of movement beside him. He had half a second to spot Melanie standing over him, and then the blanket he lay on swept over him. She pushed and he rolled, toppling off his bed as an explosive crash erupted through the room. His head banged the floor and he saw stars. Tangled in the blanket, he saw nothing when he heard a a gust of air and then a woman’s voice echoing like it came from a great distance.

“LEAVE.”

Energy crackled through the room, making the hairs on his arms stand up. Another crash and a shattering of glass, and then cold wind gusting into the room as the curtains flapped. But it was what Yuri heard next that chilled the blood in his veins: a man’s quiet chuckle that faded as quickly as it appeared. The voice was deep, ominous, and just close enough to familiarity to frustrate him. 

After the chaos of seconds before, it took a few moments for Yuri to realize it was over. In the motionless room, he shook his way out of the tangled blanket. Clearly Melanie hadn’t been content to push him down the stairs, because now he ached from a tumble off the bed, too. He pulled himself to his knees, clutching the edge of the mattress. That was when he noticed the shards of glass covering the bed, ripping through the sheets. His own pale face reflected back in the pieces of mirror, and his heart throbbed as he realized the sliced sheets could easily have been his own flesh if he hadn’t fallen off the bed.

In the mirrored shards, he saw his eyes go wide as understand lanced through him.  Of course . He’d been so  stupid . His neck craned around the room, wondering if Melanie was still around. “Hey, are you still here? I’m sorry! I’m sorry I was dumb!” They’d had it all wrong and he felt so stupid and guilty for not putting it together before now. 

Using the bed as a crutch, he got to his feet and staggered to the door, mostly hopping on one foot. In the hall, he heard running footsteps and saw Karol and Repede racing toward him, no doubt having heard the commotion. Yuri leaned on the wall and hopped forward, stumbling when his weight accidentally came down on his ankle and he dropped to his knees with a grunt.

“Yuri! Yuri, what happened! Are you ok!?”

“I’m fine.” Yuri waved off Karol’s fawning when he and Repede reached him. “Karol, really, I’m not hurt.”

Karol finally believed him and backed off, while Repede stood in the doorway of the bedroom and growled, fur standing up with concern at the mess inside.

“What happened?” Karol asked, giving Yuri a hand back to his feet. “Did Melanie attack you again?”

Leaning against the wall, Yuri shook his head. “No, not at all. Actually, we’ve got it all backward.” He grinned, too excited about his realization to worry about his throbbing headache and the threatening chuckle. “Melanie isn’t attacking us - she’s  helping us. There’s something else in this house; something violent and dangerous. I don’t know what it is, but I think Melanie does and she’s sticking around to protect us from it.”

Karol’s eyebrows rose. “Really? But what about pushing you down the stairs, or dropping the bookshelf on you?”

Yuri shook his head, still grinning. “I don’t think she was trying to hurt me last night. The shadowy thing I saw,” here his grin did slip, because just the memory of that awful creature gave him the shudders, “was definitely trying to hurt me, but she pushed me out of its way just in time. It was my own bad luck I happened to be standing at the top of the stairs. And when the bookshelf fell on me, I don’t think she said ‘get out’ as a warning to me. She was talking to the thing that  was attacking me and telling it to go away.” 

All this time, he’d assumed Melanie’s presence at all his near-misses with accidents meant she was the culprit, when actually it was only her presence that kept them misses.

 

* * *

 

Judith returned from Dahngrest with crutches and an axe. Yuri wondered what it meant when he wasn’t even surprised that Judy fetching medical supplies ended in returning with a deadly weapon. They gathered in the hall in front of the door, which was once again as closed as ever. 

“At least we know what’s on the other side now,” Karol said. “Well, sorta. I wonder where the stairs lead.”

Yuri leaned on the crutches to keep weight off his foot. He’d explained as much as he could remember about the door, and Karol and Judith were as confused as he was. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s anywhere good.” He would wonder about the fact that the house had no third storey so clearly a staircase couldn’t lead anywhere but the ceiling, but considering the door couldn’t possibly exist in the first place, that seemed like the least of his worries. 

Judith gripped the axe, standing before the wooden door. “Let’s find out.” With a hefty swing, she smashed the blade into the door. 

Yuri expected a satisfying splinter, but instead it struck with a heavy  THUD  and then Judith staggered back, nearly crashing into Yuri. He stumbled to avoid taking an axe to the head, swaying on the crutches. “Hey, watch it.”

Judith gave him a glance to make sure he was ok, and then turned her attention to the door. “Hm… that’s weird.”

Karol slipped past her and ran his hand along the wood. “Did the axe do anything at all? It doesn’t look like the the wood is even dented.”

“Not a crack.” Judith leaned the axe against the wall and massaged her arm, sore from the violent ricochet. 

Yuri glared daggers at the door, but since it was an inanimate object it didn’t properly appreciate his venom. “I’m not even surprised at this point.” He’d give it a try himself, but if Judith couldn’t even leave a mark on it, he doubted he’d do much better while trying to balance on one leg. 

“Ok,” Karol said slowly, rubbing his chin. “We can’t get through the door like this. But, we know there’s something behind it. I guess we could wait until it opens on its own and check it out.”

“I don’t like the idea of going in there when it wants us,” Yuri said. “I’m not a superstitious guy, but I got a real bad feeling from this door. Whatever is on the other side doesn’t even fit in our reality.”

“We could tie a rope around someone’s waist,” Judith suggested. “The next time the door opens, one of us will tie a rope around our waist to keep a lifeline to reality and then go in to explore. Whatever is up there, I have a feeling it’s our best clue for finding Raven.”

Yuri nodded. “It’s the only thing I can think of. I don’t like it, but someone’s going to have to check it out. Two of us, maybe, for additional security, and one staying back here to guard the entrance.”  In case something else comes out first.  There was no need to freak Karol out further with that comment. 

“How will we know when the door is open?” Karol asked.

Yuri recalled the tug he’d felt the night before, like some intangible force was pulling him insistently toward the door. He glowered at it. “Don’t worry; I have a feeling we’ll know.”

 

* * *

 

That night, they sat down for dinner to work out their options. 

“We have to get to the bottom of what’s in this house,” Yuri said as he neared the end of dinner. “All we know is that there’s a freaky door that seems to be letting in spooks.”

“Multiple spooks, you think?” Judith asked. “We’ve been assuming that, but I suppose we don’t know for sure.”

Yuri nodded. “We already know it’s at least Melanie and one other. And with all the little things going on in addition to several distinct attacks on my life, I’d say there’s at least a few spirits in the house. They seem to have different MOs.”

“I think so, too,” Karol said. “I get the feeling the things that whisper behind our backs in the hallways and slam doors are different from the thing that tried to kill Yuri.”

“What I want to know,” Yuri said, “is if Melanie apparently doesn’t have a problem with us, why don’t the others seem to us?”

“Don’t like  you ,” Karol pointed out. “Judith and I haven’t had any problems with ghosts except if we’re around you.”

Yuri stabbed his salad. “Just my luck. I don’t know what I did to offend them, but I’d like to figure it out. As far as we know, nobody else died in this building, right?”

“If they did, Pavel doesn’t know about it and I don’t know how we’d find out.”

Judith chewed thoughtfully. After swallowing, she said, “I can think of someone who might know.” When Yuri and Karol looked to her, she said, “Melanie clearly knew that whatever was in the house was bad news and that’s why she stuck around. If we communicate with her, she might be able to tell us why the house is haunted and how to get rid of them.”

“How are we supposed to communicate with her, though?” Yuri asked. “She hardly ever speaks and pops up at random.”

Karol shrugged. “She seems to show up whenever you’re about to get killed. Maybe we should dangle you off the roof.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

“Karol has a point. I think if anybody is going to have luck contacting her, it’s going to be you.”

“So what do you want to do?” Yuri put his fork on his now-empty plate. “Have a seance? Hold hands around a crystal ball and ask her to knock three times if there’s a monster that wants to eat me?”

Judith gave him a look. “I don’t think that would be very useful.”

“Seriously, Yuri,” Karol said, “you should try to communicate with her. See if you can ask her what’s going on and how we can stop it.”

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.” An idea was already springing to life in his mind; he just hoped it worked. “When I do, I can also ask what her deal is with me.”

“It sure is weird.” A slight smirk reached Karol’s lips. “I’m more used to trying to guess why certain people hate you.”

Yuri gave him a dry look. “Thanks, Captain. Guess I’d better give this a shot.” 

They finished eating, washed the dishes, and then Yuri led the way across the house. He didn’t know if this was going to work, but it was worth a shot. Karol and Judith stayed behind in the next room, and Yuri limped into the music room. Melanie wasn’t here now, but she seemed to like this room more than all the others. 

He closed the door behind him and looked around the dimly lit room. The sun had set, so only moonlight lit the red wallpaper. Yuri surveyed the room, but there was no sign of life - or unlife. After so many assassination attempts, he was nervous being alone in a dark room in this rotten house, but Karol, Judith, and Repede were on the other side of the door. It would be fine. 

Yuri rested the crutches against the piano and took a took a seat. Shadows of tree branches like gnarled hands gripped the smooth, lacquered wood of the piano, and the ivory keys gleamed in the low light. His hands hovered uncertainly over the keys. It had been years since he’d touched a piano. There used to be one in a corner of the Comet that Yuri’s own grandmother had given lessons on decades ago, but it had been sold to cover the bills when Flynn’s mom was still alive. Still, he remembered learning to play “Mary Had a Little Bunwiggle” when he was seven, so he wasn’t totally lost. He flexed his fingers; this didn’t have to be perfect. Experimentally, he tapped a key near the middle of the board. After the room’s silence, the sudden note seemed distressingly loud. Everything in the house must have heard that! 

How did Melanie’s song go? There were a few mid-range notes and then it climbed a scale to dainty high notes, skipping around up there like a songbird in the clouds. Yuri tried to replicate this to the best of his ability, taking wild stabs at keys and hoping he hammered out the basics of the tune. It wasn’t a complex song, at least. One note followed the other with little overlap. He knew he was butchering it, and every off-tune note hurt his ear for music. 

His fingers reached for a low note, and then a pale hand beat him to it. He jumped and glanced over to see Melanie slipping onto the bench beside him. She hit the note, and then wrapped her hand over his. The back of Yuri’s hand buzzed with energy as a chill ran up his arm. One of her fingers pressed down, going straight through Yuri’s to hit the note. A shudder rushed through him, but he got the hint and when her next finger moved, he moved with her and hit the note in time. With Melanie guiding the notes, Yuri played a basic melody, a tiny segment of her larger song. 

After, she pulled her hand away and met his eyes, her face a painting of amusement.

Yuri rested his hands on his lap. “Heh. Sorry, I’m not really a pianist.”

Melanie smiled; he was forgiven.

“I thought you might show up if you heard your favourite song. Or, you might come to correct it if I butchered it enough.”

She nodded slowly, still watching his face.

“Not much of a talker, huh?”

Her soft smile dropped at the corners, and Yuri recalled the few times he had heard her voice. It had been echoed and forced, like she had to forcefully drag it out of the afterlife. “It’s hard for you to talk, isn’t it?”

She nodded again, apologetically.

“That’s ok. I’ll just ask yes or no questions, ok?” She didn’t protest, so he took that as an agreement. He slid over on the bench so he could twist and face her. “You’re not the one attacking us, are you?”

Relief covered her face as she shook her head.

“Sorry we blamed you.” It must suck to put all this effort into protecting people only for them to turn around and blame it all on you. “Do you know who or what  is responsible?”

Excitement spiked when she nodded again.

“That’s great. Will you tell me?”

She considered this, and then slowly nodded. Before Yuri could ask her to elaborate somehow, she held out her hand. The meaning was obvious.

“You want me to come with you?”

Melanie rose to her feet and drifted to the door. Not wanting her to escape, Yuri grabbed his crutches and limped after her. He followed her out of the music room through the door opposite the others, and through a series of rooms before they made it back to the main entry. Remembering the awful apparition he’d seen last night, Yuri’s senses remained on high alert. The only supernatural being tonight, though, was the ghostly woman he was following. She floated up the stairs, and then helpfully waited for Yuri to hop up on one foot. This damned sprained ankle was really obnoxious, but he wasn’t going to let it keep him from getting to the bottom of this. Upstairs, Melanie began guiding him again. It was easy to follow her, even in the dark, because she glowed with pale light. 

With every hobbled step, Yuri became more and more certain he knew where she was leading him. His muscles grew tense until, sure enough, he faced the impossible door. It was closed, but when Melanie clutched the doorknob, it swung open. A burst of cold, dead air swept toward him, and he froze before the lure of the door could hook him again.

Melanie looked back, questioningly.

Yuri shook his head. “No. If you want to explain, do it here.”

The dark stairs formed a backdrop as she faced him, arm extended, beckoning. She didn’t speak but Yuri was certain he could hear her words in his head.  Come with me… come along, Yuri… follow me…

Unthinkingly, he started moving his foot forward. No! He clutched the grips of the crutches and fought back the urge to follow her. The unnatural sensation from the previous night still oozed from the door and his gut said that no good would come from proceeding up those stairs. 

But… she looked so sad that he wouldn’t follow…. 

No, Yuri! If you went upstairs with every girl who pouted at you, you’d have more ex-lovers than Raven.

It could be his only chance to find out what was going on here.

Footsteps ran toward him. “Yuri, are you ok!?”

Over his shoulder, he spotted Karol, Judith, and Repede hurrying toward him. Then he heard a door click shut, and when he looked back, Melanie was gone. 

“Hey, guys.” Yuri turned away from the door. “I’m fine.”

Judith looked at the door instead of him. “She wanted you to follow her through the door?”

“Seems like it.”

“That’s weird.” Karol shifted from foot to foot, standing close to Yuri. “I thought she wanted to protect you? Why would she try to lure you into that door?”

Yuri stared at the door, begging for answers. “Maybe… it’s not so bad on the other side?” Even as he said it, he didn’t believe it. He knew in his gut that living things shouldn’t go through there. He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

  



	8. A Loving Stranger

It was mid-morning, though it was hard to tell through the rain. Yuri was exhausted once again, because he'd lain awake half the night wondering what mysteries could lie beyond the door. Repede followed Yuri through the second floor, on their way to the writing room. It was one of the few rooms Cyril had frequented, but they had avoided it ever since Yuri was attacked in there. There was a chance Cyril kept household records or other historical documents in there, so Yuri was going to chance searching it. He'd assumed that Melanie was especially protective of the room, hence the attack, but since she wasn't the one doing the attacking, perhaps it was just a coincidence.

Still, Yuri opened the door with caution. Books still covered the floor and he had to navigate around the fallen shelf. From the wall, Melanie's portrait stared back at him. "Repede, see if you can find anything about the people who worked here or the land it was built on."

Repede sniffed through the books while Yuri tried to get to the desk. He wobbled a few times and nearly fell over trying to balance on crutches on this mess, but made it without any new injuries. He sat in the chair and leaned over to examine the stack of books sitting under the desk. His nose itched from all the dust contained in these old books. Ho had Cyril spent so much time in here? Especially with the portrait staring down at the desk. Maybe Cyril loved her, but the painting seemed to be watching him.

Yuri pulled a stack of yellowing papers out of the stack. The ink was faded and the edges crumbling, but it seemed to be old contracts or something. The legal jargon caused Yuri's eyes to blur and he wished Flynn were here already to make sense of this. Yuri still had the remnants of a headache; he didn't sign up to decipher fifty year old legal documents. All he managed to make out was something about land. Maybe this was the contract from when Cyril bought the property to build his house? He'd take it back to Karol. If Pavel didn't know anything about the house, maybe they could look up whoever owned the land before Cyril. If there was something cursed about the property itself, it would explain why they couldn't find anything in the history of the house specifically. Of course, that didn't explain why all the weird stuff was concentrated inside and they'd always been safe on the grounds outside. Maybe…

He groaned and tossed the paper to the desk. They'd work this out later. He leaned back in the chair and looked up at the portrait with a sigh. "It sure would be helpful if you could talk, you know."

Melanie's painted face wordlessly smiled back at him. Such a shame she died young, although her ghost sticking around was convenient for him. Yuri shuddered to imagine how many times he might have died had she not been looking out for him.

As he stared into the portrait's eyes, a thought crept into his mind. He recalled his meeting with her ghost last night, every detail of her face crystal clear in his memory. Her pale skin, black hair straight as a ruler, pale blue eyes silently meeting his. Yuri's heart drummed; the eyes in the portrait were brown.

"Repede, we'll come back later. I need to talk to the others." He hurried to their bedroom as quickly as he could.

Karol and Judith sat on the bed, papers from Pavel spread out between them. They'd already been over all of it, but with nothing else to go on, they hoped to find new clues. "Hey, Yuri." Karol looked up as Yuri came in and sat on the edge of the bed. "Did you and Repede find anything in the office?"

"Maybe. I thought of something. Judy… in the journal, it said Melanie played the piano a lot, right?"

"Hm? Yes." She flipped through, trying to find the exact page. "He said she was an expert pianist and went on quite extensively about her skill."

A frown tugged at his face. "Does it seem to you that an expert pianist would endlessly play a single song so basic it seems like something a child might learn in their first week of lessons?"

Judy lowered the journal. "What are you getting at?"

"Do you think a woman whose husband built a home like this would wear such a simple skirt and blouse? And we know that's not what she died in, if that's how this works, since we found her skeleton in her night gown. She was a lady, someone who had portraits painted of her. Portraits with brown eyes and wavy hair. The ghost we've been seeing… her eyes are blue and her hair is straight."

Karol gasped. "So… wait, she's not Melanie?"

Yuri slowly shook her head. "I don't think she is."

"Who else could she be, though?" Judith asked.

"Who knows? As far as we can tell, nobody else died in this house but ghosts are showing up anyway." Yuri shrugged. "I guess it doesn't really matter who she is, since she isn't a threat." It was certainly confusing, though. At least when they thought she was Melanie, they could assume she was protecting the house because she used to live here. If she had no connection to the house, why was she here?

* * *

Several days passed, and no advancements were made. That wasn't to say nothing had happened. On the contrary, a day didn't pass without at least one attempt on Yuri's life. He was starting to get more annoyed than distressed when chandeliers nearly fell on him or knives flew across the kitchen. A man could only nearly be murdered by a ghost so many times before it became run-of-the-mill. He might pay more attention to the attempts if he actually sustained any injuries. Thankfully, his mysterious saviour swept in every time like a guardian angel to chase away the ghost. He felt foolish for ever thinking she was trying to hurt him, even if he had to wonder more than ever why she cared about him.

One thing that comforted Yuri was that there had been no attacks on Karol, Judith, or Repede. Whatever he had done to antagonize the spirits of this house, it was focused solely on him. The others weren't too relieved about this, since they showed more concern for Yuri's well-being than he did. They even suggested he leave and let them finish the case before he got more seriously hurt, but Yuri shot them down. Part of this was because he had no interest in hobbling back to Dahngrest on crutches and his only other option was sleeping outside in the rain and mud.

They said they didn't want to just wait for Rita to arrive and do her science thing, but that was what they'd ended up doing. Pavel had stopped by one afternoon to check up on them, but they had no new information and he had nothing to share with them, either. He'd looked into who owned the land before Cyril bought it, but it had simply belonged to some businessman. There was no evidence of a secret burial ground the house was desecrating and looking back into hundreds of years of history didn't reveal some long-ago battle. For all intents and purposes it was nothing but a plot of grass and an innocent house with no logical reason for being haunted. No one could figure out who the ghostly woman might be if she wasn't Melanie, and no one had any clue why the other spirits might be after Yuri. It was a frustrating wait for something to happen and Yuri hadn't been so impatient to see Flynn in ages.

One night, Yuri lay awake next to Karol. "Hey… Yuri?" Karol whispered.

"What?"

"Do you think the the ghosts here actually have nothing to do with the location?"

Yuri shifted his head to face Karol. "Maybe. Why?"

"Well…" He squirmed, propping himself up on the pillow rather than lying flat on his back. "We've been trying to figure out who this ghost woman could be and why any of these ghosts are here, but we're hitting dead ends because we can't find anyone who died here, or even anyone connected to the house who died. So maybe it isn't the ghosts. Maybe it's the house."

"Even if it's the house that's causing ghosts to appear, that doesn't explain why these people specifically are hanging around."

"No, that's what I mean. Maybe there isn't a reason for these ghosts particularly. What if this whole building is just… just inherently rotten somehow, and it attracts spirits like flies."

Yuri stared at the ceiling for a moment. "You know… you might be on to something, Captain."

Karole looked over with excitement. "You think so?"

"If we give up trying to guess why these ghosts specifically are in this house, we might get some answers. Whatever it is, I'm certain it has something to do with that door."

Karol bobbed his head. "I think so, too. You said it felt… weird or wrong or something, right?"

"Yeah. It's hard to describe. It's like… you know how animals instinctively know to avoid sickness? It's like that. I can't put my finger on exactly how I know, but something about the space beyond the door is just rotten."

"Like it's dead?"

"Hm… maybe."

Karol rubbed his chin with a frown. "I've got a theory about that. I was thinking, what if that door is actually a door to the underworld or something like that?"

Yuri let himself think about this for a moment before answering. "The stairs go up, though. Wouldn't that make it an overworld?"

Karol punched his shoulder. "I don't think the underworld is literally underground, Yuri. I think it might lead to the afterlife, or something like that. A land of the dead, where the living don't belong."

"Sounds pretty spooky." Yuri folded his hands on his stomach, thinking. "You might be right, though. Random ghosts from anywhere and any time might be using this door to sneak into the realm of the living. It has nothing to do with us or the house - they just want out, and we're in the way."

"I wonder who the woman is."

"I guess it doesn't really matter. She's probably just a kind dead girl who slipped out with the others and wants to help." It might be a coincidence that Yuri knew her favourite song. It could be she'd lived in the lower quarter in life, and her song was an old folk song Yuri had heard as a kid. The reason the nasty ghosts had it out for him could be explained by his natural shitty luck. Maybe all of this was a horrible coincidence that had nothing to do with anyone.

Still… that just didn't feel right. It would make logical sense, but it wasn't a satisfying solution. He couldn't shake the feeling the woman had some personal reason for wanting to protect him, but if she could be anyone with no tie to the house, how was he ever going to figure it out? He'd helped a lot of people during their adventure; maybe that had something to do with it? Someone victimized by Ragou or Cumore, maybe, who wanted to thank him for getting rid of those bastards even if he was too late to save her? There were a thousand possibilities and as long as she never actually spoke to him, he didn't know how to narrow it down. He had to focus on more practical matters. "If the door is the source of all this crap, what are we gonna do about it? Judy already demonstrated we can't destroy it."

"I've been thinking about that, too. The door wasn't originally built in the house. It just appeared sometime along the way. So, maybe if the house is gone, the door will disappear too."

"Destroy the entire house? Fire might work."

Karol nodded. "Fire is really effective against the undead in general. Maybe if we burned the whole house down until there was nothing left but ashes, the door would disappear as mysteriously as it arrived."

"That leaves Pavel out of luck. He was planning on selling this place. We'd be out of luck, too, since we don't get paid until he sells it and gives us our cut." The part of his brain that Flynn largely disapproved of came up with a plan. "Hey, what if we got him to take out fire insurance on the house and then we burned it down, eliminating the ghosts and scoring Pavel a chunk of insurance money in one go."

Karol gave him deadpan look. "Are you suggesting we resort to insurance fraud?"

Yuri frowned. "It's worth a shot. Destroying this whole rotten building might be the only solution, and at least that way Pavel will get some of the gald he deserves."

"Somehow I don't think that would go over well."

"Yeah, I guess not." Imagining Flynn's face when he showed up to help only to find Yuri standing over the charred remains of his first foray into arson was an amusing mental image, though.

* * *

A couple of nights later, Yuri stretched his leg out and massaged his ankle. His arms were sore from hobbling around on crutches all week, so he was eager to put his foot to the test. He was the only one awake because it was his turn at night watch, but he might as well do something productive rather than lie around and risk dozing off.

Gingerly, he rested his feet on the ground and slowly stood up. Most of his weight leaned on his left foot, but a delicate exchange of weight proved the right was capable of bearing it. It sent stabs of pain shooting up his calf, but he stayed on his feet. He took an experimental step, cringing from the sprain but managing to keep moving. He grabbed a lamp and limped into the hallway, where he set it on the ground by the open door. Every step hurt, but he was sick of crutches and it had healed enough that he could almost walk. With the gas lamp casting shaky shadows in the dim hallway, he limped up and down its length. He needed to strengthen his ankle so he could run again.

Running was important. He couldn't point to an exact reason he needed to run, but he couldn't shake the feeling he was like the wounded deer in a herd. Something was coming, and when it did he was going to need to run. Hopefully, that something would hold off arriving until his ankle healed more.

About twenty feet away from the bedroom door, which he'd left open just in case, he pressed his hand against the wall and eased himself to the ground to take a short rest. Heat throbbed in his ankle, but he'd walked this whole way without crutches so he let himself celebrate the victory. At least when Flynn arrived he wouldn't be able to make any jokes about crutches.

Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he jumped before realizing it was the dark-haired woman. She crouched beside him and reached for his foot. Yuri sat motionlessly, watching her warily. Her hand rested on his ankle, her chill soothing the inflamed muscle.

"Thanks."

She looked up, meeting his eyes and smiling.

"I know you're not Melanie, but I wish I knew what to call you." Her round face was smooth and her eyes bright; Judith might be older than her. He couldn't see much of her body beneath her billowy shirt and long skirt, so he couldn't tell if her thinness was from healthy living and exercise or malnutrition. "Who are you? Why do you care about me?"

Her hand moved away from his ankle to the side of his face, gently cupping his cheek. You should know, it said, and Yuri kicked himself for not figuring it out. Where was he supposed to know her from? He couldn't remember ever meeting a teenage girl matching her description in his life.

"Is it the same reason all the other ghosts are obsessed with me?"

She frowned and pulled her hand away, giving him a tiny shake of her head.

"So… why are they here? Why do they hate me? And don't tell me to follow you through that door again."

She hesitated, clearly struggling to explain. To her credit, she didn't tell him to follow her again. Instead, she reached forward and pressed her hand against his chest. Her deathly cold sunk into his flesh, sending ice curling into his heart.

"That… doesn't explain anything." He watched her face, searching for additional clues. Instead, he just stared into her eyes and struggled with a glimmer of recognition. He felt as if he should know her, but couldn't place her. A childhood friend? He searched his childhood memories for a little dark-haired girl he might have played with, but found nothing. How could someone he didn't even remember meeting look at him with such affection in her eyes? What kind of women would care so much about someone she'd never spoken -

The light winked out. In the sudden darkness of the corridor, only the woman's ghostly glow was the only light. She pulled her hand away and looked around, fear in her eyes, as the temperature of the hall plummeted. Tension buzzed in the air, and Yuri grabbed the wall, struggling to get to his feet. He didn't know what was happening, but the hairs standing up on the back of his neck gave him a dire feeling.

A shadow swept toward him with a rush of air, and he instinctively pulled his arms up in defence. A second later, icy fingers locked around his throat. His shout of surprise strangled out as fingers dug into his windpipe, as if someone was grabbing him from behind. Yuri's arms flew out to fight his attacker, but struck air. His fingers scrambled at his throat, digging into nothing but his own flesh.

The women flew toward him, but before she could reach, Yuri was yanked backward. An unseen force dragged him down the hall by the neck, cutting off his air while he kicked and struggled. How was he supposed to fight off an assailant he couldn't even see?! The carpet scuffed under his heels as he was dragged away. The open door to his bedroom disappeared around a corner while he coughed and choked, trying to get enough air for a single shout.

He passed a tarnished mirror and he spotted a shadowy figure looming over him, digging its hands into his throat. If such a being did exist, he couldn't see it in real life. His lungs begged for oxygen while his eyes watered. The throttling hands spread ice through his skin but he didn't care about the cold between his desperate wheezes for air.

While struggling to breathe, he couldn't pay attention to which corners they rounded or which halls the force dragged him through. He noticed nothing but his increasing need to breathe and the pain digging into his throat. Purple spots floated across his vision, and a point of light in the distance grew larger and larger. Yuri's oxygen-deprived brain interpreted this as the light you weren't supposed to go toward when you died, and his thrashing became fiercer than ever in an attempt to hold onto life.

Instead of death, the light turned out to be Yuri's ghostly saviour. She rushed right through him, crashing into whatever invisible force had him in its grip. The fingers on his neck finally loosened and he pried away with a thankful gulp of air. His bad ankle smashed to the ground and his leg twisted, sending him crashing to the ground.

A tiny gasp of breath caught his attention and he rolled on his side to see the woman struggling with a shadow. Panic gripped her face as the malevolent force turned its attention from Yuri to her and pulled her away. Yuri crawled to his knees and finally realized where he was.

Ahead of him, the door hung open. Yuri's protector was already nearing the steps, kicking and struggling with the thing pulling her into the darkness. Clearly, the spirit trying to do Yuri in had grown tired of her interventions and decided to get rid of her so it could murder Yuri in peace. After she'd helped him so many times, it was his turn to help her. But when he met her eyes, his intention clear on his face, she managed to shake her head a tiny 'no'.

The being pulled her up the stairs, and if he didn't do something soon, she was going to be beyond his reach. How was he supposed to protect a ghost from another ghost? He couldn't even follow because he'd have to go beyond the door. He should do as she said and leave her, probably get his friends and evacuate the house now that she wouldn't be around to protect them. It felt horrible to abandon her after everything she'd done for him, but what else could he do?

Seeing him still hesitating at the end of the hall, she summoned every last dredge of strength and managed to shout, "Yuri! Run!"

He saw the panic in her eyes - not panic for her own well-being, but terror that he would follow her and get hurt himself. A panic born from a love so intense his own wellbeing eclipsed her own. And in that moment, it clicked. He knew exactly who she was and knew, with a certainty brighter than the sun, that he could not abandon her, no matter where it might send him.

Taking a deep breath, he got to his feet and ran, ignoring the stab of pain in his ankle. He didn't even question his decision as he darted past the door, clambering up the steps with a furious shout of, "Get your hands off my mother!"


	9. Beyond the Door

Wind moaned through the trees, and Yuri waited for his eyes to adjust to the low light. The clouds parted and the moon shone with its full brightness, illuminating a copse of trees rustling in the breeze. Grass swayed and stars glimmered from a deep blue sky.

Where the hell was he? He'd run up the stairs and into… outside? Except, once he took a closer look, he realized he wasn't outside. He could hear the wind, but not feel it on his face. And behind him… Yuri turned and saw faded, peeling wallpaper. His eyes scanned up, following the wall until it met what looked like the sky. Thirty, maybe forty feet up was a domed ceiling painted blue, with lights glowing like stars. Everything here was doing a commendable job of mimicking nature, but he was still inside and the staircase he'd taken to get up here was nowhere to be seen.

More importantly: where was his mom? The fog that had shrouded his attempts to identify her had cleared and the truth shone with bright certainty. Of course her face looked familiar - he'd seen it reflected in himself every time he looked in a mirror. She was his mother, drawn out of the afterlife to protect him from… what? He'd followed her up here, but now she was nowhere to be seen.

A bead of moisture dripped down his fingers - sweat, perhaps. He rubbed his fingers together to get rid of it, but instead felt more sticky fluid clinging to his hands. In confusion, he looked down and stifled a gasp. Thick red blood coated both hands, dripping spots onto his shoes. "What the hell?"

He shook his hands and rubbed them together, and when that didn't work he crouched to rub them on the grass. Now matter how much blood he smeared on the unrealistically green grass, more took its place on his palms. Whose blood was it? Yuri checked himself over, carefully so as not to get blood on his clothes, and didn't find any injuries. He hadn't even touched anyone with his hands since pushing Karol away from his side of the bed a couple of hours ago. His mouth went dry and he reminded himself it couldn't possibly be Karol's blood. He'd remember if Karol was hurt.

The 'room' was so large he could barely make out the opposite wall, and was filled with nothing but short grass and low trees waving their leaves in the night air. The only sound was the nonexistent wind, so the addition of feet crushing grass stood out loud and clear. Yuri squinted, and his heart skipped a beat when he realized one of the trees wasn't a tree at all, but a shadowy figure walking toward him. Putting two and two together, he surmised this was the same being that had nearly strangled him to death a few minutes ago. He had no weapon and a gimp ankle, so he didn't give himself good chances of overcoming this creature on his own. That's ok, he thought. I'm not here to fight. I'm here to find my mom.

He ran. Well, more of an accelerated limp. He followed the wall and didn't waste any time pondering the ridiculousness of a wall covered in peeling mauve wallpaper next to a grassy field. His damn ankle kept him from going too fast, but then he saw it: a door!

Yuri flung it open and ran into the next room, slamming it shut behind him. For a moment he looked for a lock, hands swiping the edges for anything to jam it with. Red smeared across polished wood and he jerked his hands away; he'd momentarily forgotten. The blood still soaked his hands, leaving bloody handprints across the wood. There wasn't a lock here anyway, so he turned and kept running. This room was much like the last, only narrower. He ran down a dirt path lined in trees, with towering brick walls about ten feet from the trunks. Between the trees and the walls were shadows.

Yuri fought against the pain in his foot while also ignoring the bruises settling into his throat. A malevolent monster he was incapable of fighting was coming for him and he couldn't even run properly! He panted, throat sore, and ignored the way the shadows behind the trees shifted and how the whispering of the breeze through the leaves took the form of soft voices.

Ahead, he spotted another door. He was almost out of this hallway, so it didn't matter if that movement on the edge of his vision was definitely humanoid. Yuri felt a hundred pairs of eyes on him when he reached the door, and while gripping the knob, he glared at the shadows.

"What?! What are you looking at?!" His voice surprised him; he hadn't realized he was that hoarse. The strangling attempt from earlier must have done more damage than he thought. "If you don't know where my mom is, bug off!"

What he heard next chilled his bones. It wasn't a scream or a laugh or any threatening noise he might have expected: it was a sob. More importantly, it was the cry of a young child coming from just behind the trees. Yuri hesitated, one hand still gripping the door. He needed to get out of here before his stalker caught up with him, but a kid was crying and he couldn't turn his back on that.

Resolving to take care of this fast, Yuri stepped off the dirt trail and onto spongy grass. "Hello?" He didn't like being this close to the trees. They were too straight and too uniform. Even though the murky green leaves were so dry they rattled in the breeze, not a single twig had fallen to the soft grass.

The crying came from a tree just ahead of him, and through the darkness he saw a small figure curled next to the trunk. "Are you ok?" he asked softly, feeling bad for shouting earlier. Yuri paced forward cautiously, ears always alert for his pursuer to reach the hallway. When he reached the tree, he squatted before the kid. "Hey, it's ok. What's your name?" If he was lost in this bizarre world beyond the door, there was a good chance other people had gotten trapped here, too.

The little boy pulled his head out of his arms, peering at him through untidy brown hair. He sniffled and the mumbled, "Y-Yuri?"

"You know me?" The boy wore tattered clothes like someone who lived in the lower quarter. There were so many kids in the neighbourhood, though, he couldn't recognize all of them.

"Th-they're coming!"

Yuri looked over his shoulder, skin crawling at the way shapes disappeared into the shadows like bugs when the light turns on. "Who's coming?"

"M-m-monsters," he cried, and then broke into a coughing fit. "The others ran away but - but I was hiding and they for-forgot me." He rubbed his reddened eyes, smearing tears into the dirt on his face. "I - I don't feel good. Yuri, what's going on?"

Yuri frowned, looking around the quiet trees. "There aren't any monsters here." Other than those shapes shifting in the background, watching him so intently it burned. He forced himself to stay calm for the kid's sake.

The child clutched his shins and shook like a leaf. "I'm so scared. Th-the sky went all red and then the barrier disappeared. Now there's roots everywhere and monsters got in and they're eating people! Th-they're going to g-get me next!"

His description unsettled Yuri; he didn't seem to be seeing the same forested corridor Yuri was. "What monsters?"

"They're right here! They're gonna eat me! W-w-why is this happening?"

The boy thought he was in Zaphias during Alexei's takeover. How was that possible? How long had he been here? "Come with me, ok? We'll get out of here together." Yuri reached for him, but when the boy saw the blood dripping from his hands he cried out and pulled away. "Ah! You're one of the monsters, aren't you!?"

Yuri swallowed a curse. "No, no, I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on with this blood. I'm a good guy, ok?"

"You're with the commandant, aren't you?" He shrunk away from Yuri with wide eyes.

"No way! I'm here to help you."

"The commandant came back to the city and everything got really bad. How come they let him be in charge? How come nobody stopped him?"

"I…" He snuffed out a groan of frustration. Stupidly trusting Alexei and letting him hurt Estelle and devastate the capital was a mistake he didn't like dwelling on. If he'd seen Alexei's deception sooner, nobody in Zaphias would have gotten hurt. Those deaths were at least partially on him, but now was not the time to think about it. "We can talk about this later. For now we need to get out of here."

The boy cried out and scooted away. "No! I have to hide! There's monsters everywhere and they're gonna eat me!"

Yuri let his hands drop. In a hoarse whisper, he said, "You're already dead, aren't you?"

In response, the boy just cried.

He must have died during Alexei's takeover of Zaphias, and now his spirit was here. Yuri checked over his shoulder at the door he'd come from, and then took a deep breath. "Do you want to come with me or not?"

The boy pulled away, shaking his head and sobbing. "No, no, you're one of them." He lashed out and shoved, pushing Yuri off balance. Yuri hit the ground with a grimace.

I can't sit here talking to a ghost all day. His mom was out there, and if this kid was already dead there wasn't anything he could do for him. It could be he wasn't even real, and was just a hallucination brought on by this fucked up world. Smearing blood all over the grass, he got back to his feet and limped to the door.

He could still hear the boy's soft crying, but the shadows in the trees, which pressed closer every time he turned his back on them, softly giggled.

Yuri suppressed a frustrated growl. "Who are you? What the hell is this place?"

He should have known better than to hope for an answer. "Ah, to hell with you." He swung the door open.

The bright white of the room beyond hurt his eyes. Yuri closed the door and looked around in confusion. He was in… a bathroom? Large white tiles covered the floor, and the walls were covered in plain white paint. Across from him was a porcelain bathtub, with a matching sink against the wall to his right. There were two doors to choose from this time; one next to the sink and one on the left wall. After the strangeness of the last two rooms, the perfectly ordinary roof ten feet over his head felt jarring.

Drip… drip… For a second he thought the sink was leaking, but then realized it was coming from him. Drops of bright red ran from his hands and splattered on the white tile. At least he'd found a sink.

He still didn't have the faintest clue where the blood had come from, but Yuri hurried to the sink. He'd never liked the feel of blood on his hands after a battle, and being covered in this much of it made his hands clammy. It was especially alarming because he didn't know where it had come from or whose it was. The last person he remembered touching was Karol… but Karol was unhurt… right? Come to think of it, he remembered running up the stairs after his mom and then he remembered standing in the field in confusion, but there was a gap in his memory. What if something had happened? Yuri shook his head. That didn't matter right now; he needed to find his mom, make sure she was ok, and find a way out of here. There was no time to worry about anything else.

He twisted the knob, leaving smears of blood across its shiny silver surface. Instead of water, blood gushed onto his hands. Gobs of deep red splashed into the gleaming white sink, leaving stains on the flawless porcelain. Yuri yanked his arms away and quickly turned off the faucet. He panted for breath as thick blood bubbled in the sink before being pulled down the drain.

A door slammed shut from the direction he'd come. Shit, the thing following him had reached the tree-lined hallway. There was no time to question this bathroom further - it was time to go. Hands redder than ever, he backed away to the door opposite. There were two directions to go from this room, so maybe his pursuer would choose the wrong door. Yuri scowled at the blood sticking to the doorknob as he pushed it open and realized that was a fool's hope. With blood constantly dripping from his hands, he might as well drop breadcrumbs.

Through the door, he found himself in a field of swaying grass that reached his waist Tiny purple flowers interspersed the grasses, and up above was the same ceiling masquerading as the night sky. He could barely see the other three walls in the distant, and the peace of the meadow begged him to sit down and rest his aching ankle. He'd already begun bending his knees when he remembered the creature stalking him. It must be nearing the bathroom even now, so he pushed himself forward.

Yuri ran through the grass, fighting the urge to shout. This place was huge; how was he ever going to find his mom? But he couldn't, because yelling for her would give away his position. Of course, with the trail of blood he left across the tips of grass he brushed past, his position was easy to find anyway.

He had to find her, though. This might be his one and only chance to meet the mother he'd never known. There were so many things he wanted to ask and so many words he wished to say. If only he hadn't been so dense and figured out who she was before! On top of wanting to find her for his own sake, he worried about her. If she was in danger, he needed to find and save her.

The far wall came into view, and he checked over his shoulder. Immediately behind him was nothing but swaying grass, but to his right, something moved. It was too far away to make out, but it was moving toward him. Shit, was this a second pursuer? That, or his stalked had entered this room from a different door… or he'd gotten so turned around he didn't even know which way he'd come from. Not sure which option he preferred, Yuri made a run for the wall. All three of those possibilities were bad, and the only thing he could do was keep running.

When he reached the door of the meadow, he kept moving. Next he found a living room, with couches covered in vines and coffee tables against tree trunks. Fog hung in the air, making his nose itch. The couch looked so inviting, and his throbbing ankle begged a rest, but he didn't have time to stop with potentially two unknown things stalking him. Besides, he didn't like the look of those vines clinging to the cushions. The leaves had sharp, jagged edges and small purple flowers that looked far too inviting to be innocent dotted their length.

Got to keep moving. He couldn't hear his pursuer, but Yuri could feel the presence growing closer. It didn't move fast, but it was steady. Yuri dashed to one of three doors, blood splattering from his hands onto the sofa as he passed. In his determination to keep moving, he ignored the way the vines twitched minutely closer to the droplets.

Leaving blood behind like a giant arrow pointing which way he'd run, Yuri left the living room and found himself in another hallway. This one pretended to be a canyon, with smooth rock rising all around him, leaning in overhead. Only a thin band of the fake sky was visible overhead, and he tripped over rocks scattered on the hardwood floor.

He paused to catch his breath and take the weight off his ankle, leaning one hand against the rock. Just how big was this place? His mom could be anywhere. Every time he had to choose what door to take, he might be walking in the opposite direction of her.

A pebble tumbled from the top of the canyon, bouncing off the rusty stone walls. Yuri's eyes darted in that direction, ears on high alert for any sign of what had dislodged that stone. So far he saw nothing, but he had no interest in getting drawn into another conversation with a dead child so he decided to book it. Leaving a clear handprint on the side of the cliff, he limped to the far door.

How long could he keep this up? The next room was a neatly manicured garden, and he picked a path at random. He hated these rooms where the walls were so far away he couldn't see the door. His ankle already threatened to give out and he'd only been through five rooms. Eventually he wouldn't be able to walk on it anymore and he'd collapse, exhausted, in whatever bizarre room he found himself in. The things stalking him didn't have to run to catch up with him - they just had to be patient. Until he got this blood off his hands, they could follow him indefinitely.

Worrying about that would just slow him down. After the garden he ran through a dining room in a desert, a field of sunflowers, a barren snowfield that somehow wasn't cold even though his ankle slipped on ice and nearly snapped, and countless more rooms. Sometimes they were so huge he almost believed he really was outside, sometimes they were long corridors with close walls inspiring claustrophobia, and sometimes they were perfectly ordinary rooms.

The ordinary onces were the worst because every time, he wondered if he'd finally reached the end and found his way back to the house. He never thought he'd be so desperate to see Cyril's house, but every innocent room he stumbled into filled him with hope that he'd found his way back to the real world. But then he investigated, and he never liked what he found. In a bedroom nearly identical to the many guest rooms in Cyril's house, he opened a wardrobe and was met with a woman hanging from a noose. Brilliant red light glowed from her chest, and then her bloodshot eyes snapped open and she shrieked, deathly pale hands reaching for his own throat. Yuri leapt backward and took off, but she screeches were so loud he could hear them even in the next room. Yuri pressed himself against the wall and panted, unable to enjoy the rose bushes in front of him as the dead woman's voice shrieked profanities at him, screaming that he was to blame, and that Yuri had killed 'him'. Whatever she was talking about, her screaming would alert Yuri's pursuers.

Sometimes Yuri caught glimpses of them in the distance. He was sure now that there was more than one. The one that had been following him from the beginning kept a slow but steady pace, while the second tailed him until it was in view and then sped up. So far Yuri had always managed to find a new level of energy to push through his exhaustion and pain to throw it off his trail, but it always came back and he had no idea how long he'd been here or how much longer he could do this. It felt like hours had passed, and his mind drifted to the panic his friends would feel when they awoke in a few hours and couldn't find him. He wanted to get back before then, but how was he supposed to find the exit?

Yuri burst through yet another door and his foot sunk into spongy moss. Spread out before him were thin trees with rough, grey bark and limbs weighed down with sheets of moss. The trees rose out of tangled piles of roots situated like islands in glassy water. Strips of muddy land ran through the swamp, and a dense fog hung in the air.

This was the first actual water he'd seen since arriving. Blood still ran in rivulets down his hands even though, logically, it should have at least dried hours ago. Without much hope of this actually working, he crouched to wash his hands. The water was so still he could see his tired face reflected back from its black surface, until another bead of blood dripped from his fingers and the ripples destroyed the reflection. His fingers broke the surface, praying this would work.

Splash! White hands locked around his wrists. Water churned as a pale, gasping face burst out of the swamp. Yuri jerked back with a shout while his heart nearly escaped his chest. His blood-slicked wrists let him escape its grip, and he fell backward on his ass. An audible crack sounded as his foot flew out and smashed its face, sending it toppling back into the water. It disappeared into the darkness, but Yuri didn't want to wait to see if it got up again.

Every step squelched in the mud and in his rush to get away from the… zombie? Ghost? Whatever the hell that was, he didn't pay too much attention to which path he took. He couldn't see very far ahead of him because of the fog anyway.

After several minutes of running, he realized the thing from the water wasn't chasing him. Yuri leaned against a tree and caught his breath, pulling up his sore foot to take weight off it. What was that? In the few panicked seconds he'd seen it, all he caught was a human face with a deathly pallor and something gleaming in the water. Able to go over his memories in slow motion now, he realized the gleam had been metal, like the shoulder pauldrons Flynn wore. The man - at least Yuri thought it had been a man, or at least was once a man - had been wearing a reddish-brown shirt that Yuri now realized could have been a Knight uniform.

Yuri turned his head to the innocently smooth water only a few feet away. Were there more of those things down there? He shuddered; he was better off not finding out. All he wanted to do was get to the next room as quickly as possible, so he set off again.

The land formed a maze, and several times he had to double back when the path he'd taken ended in water. It probably wasn't very deep given the trees, but there was no way he was going to try to wade across. Damn, he was exhausted. He'd been on the run for hours and still didn't have any clue where his mom was, or where anything was for that matter. He couldn't find his way back to the room where he'd started if he tried. He took a long, deep breath and the damp scent of fog clogged his nose. The breath had seemed too loud, but that was because it was the only sound in the room. It might look like a swamp, but it didn't have nearly enough buzzing insects or croaking frogs to sound authentic. In fact, he hadn't seen any animals in this whole rotten place. What if he was stuck here for days? What was he going to eat?

Another sound startled him out of that thought. It was like a long gasp of breath, and Yuri stiffened not because it was unfamiliar but because it was. Dreading what he'd find, Yuri checked over his shoulder. Sure enough, a hazy silhouette began to take shape through the fog.

It wasn't the pursuer he'd been fleeing since he got here. He could tell as much from the way it walked, the way this one's head swayed with every step and the accompanying slurps of air. Yuri's heart throbbed a little faster; this was a monster he'd hoped to never meet again. Last time, Mom had pushed him out of the way before it could kill him, but she wasn't here now and he had a bad feeling this encounter might end in much worse than a sprained ankle.

All he could hope for was to outrun it. Memories of how fast it had moved the last time they met toyed with him, but he couldn't dwell on that now. Ignoring its bone-chilling gasps for air, Yuri booted it down his narrow strip of land. Paying no attention to his screaming ankle, he leapt over a fallen log and sprinted through the the mist, intent only on putting as much space between him and that awful spirit as possible.

He ran so fast he almost didn't stop himself from crashing right into the swamp. Yuri spun his arms and backed away, eyes darting around at the water surrounding him. Fuck. He'd hit another dead end. He swallowed heavily and looked up, and with a pang of frustration he spotted the door about fifteen feet away, separated from him by a pool of murky water.

Swimming for it was always an option, but did he dare set foot in that water? Going into the water was probably inviting an attack from freaky zombie knights. Either way, an undead monster was going to try to kill him, so he might as well stay on dry land. Yuri turned to face the apparition, trying to convince himself its continued rattling breaths didn't freak him out.

It was close enough that he could make out the clear shape of a man. Yuri's bloody fingers twitched, and he scanned his surroundings for a weapon. He was going to stand his ground, so he needed something to defend himself. Next to him was a tree, so he quickly reached for the lowest branch, yanked, and snapped it off. It was about an inch thick and had a net of moss clinging to one end, but it was better than nothing.

Wielding it like a sword, he said, "Stay back."

Unsurprisingly, it kept coming closer. As it neared, Yuri noticed it was slightly different than the last time they'd met. Here, it appeared much more solid and he could make out more details, like clothing and facial features. In fact… Yuri's heart plummeted into his stomach when its face emerged from the fog and he got a good look at the face.

Air whistled into its mouth and the neck squelched as its next step jarred it. He wasn't an it, though - he was very human, or at least had been. Blood stained the front of his robe and his hair hung in stringy strands. One of his legs was broken, but that didn't seem to bother him as he stalked toward Yuri with murderous intent.

Yuri took a deep breath of his own and flexed his fingers on the branch. "Ragou," he breathed. "Damn, I didn't think I'd ever see your ugly mug again."

Ragou - or what was left of him - didn't reply, but that might be because he had a massive gash across his throat.

Yuri tried to sound confident, but his voice strained and scratched through his bruised throat. "I killed you once, you bastard, and I'll do it again."

If Ragou felt threatened, he didn't show it. He got closer and closer, every breath hissing through his slit throat.

Yuri struggled to maintain a tight grip on his branch when the blood oozed between his clenched fingers. If Ragou did kill him, at least he would deserve it. Ragou was a piece of crap, but the fact remained that Yuri murdered him. Was it the right thing to do? Yuri thought so… hoped so. Despite that, it was still murder. It was a crime, and it was wrong. Sometimes, you had to do terrible things that darkened your soul and permanently bloodied your hands in order to leave a better world for those that deserved it. Yuri had accepted that, and he accepted that his actions might have consequences. He'd always thought those consequences would come from Flynn, but in his shoes he could hardly blame Ragou for desiring revenge. You can't murder a guy in cold blood and then be offended when someone tries to do the same to you.

That didn't mean he had to lie down and take it. Before Ragou could get any closer, Yuri charged. Swinging the branch like a bat, he bashed Ragou around the head. His neck, already half-cut by Yuri's previous attack, ripped as it twisted. The head snapped back, holding onto the neck by only a scrap of flesh. The end of the branch cracked off, leaving one end jagged. Ragou stumbled and Yuri slammed the sharpened end into his stomach, knocking him down. Yuri kept going, letting momentum and gravity do the work. The branch sunk through his soft flesh and into the mud beneath.

Yuri jumped up and took a step back. His stomach flipped as Ragou writhed and moaned on the ground, more blood bubbling up around the branch as his nearly-decapitated head flailed back and forth. Considering the state of his neck, Yuri wasn't dumb enough to think he was really dead. Hopefully this would hold him long enough for Yuri to make an escape.

He ran past Ragou's body, but then bony fingers seized his ankle. Yuri gasped when all his weight came down on his sprained ankle and he wobbled. Ragou's fingers dug into his good ankle, threatening to break it, too. Then he twisted and jerked Yuri to the side, releasing him. Yuri's bad foot came down hard and promptly collapsed. He toppled backward, hitting the water with a splash.

Black water closed over his face. Yuri clawed at the water, and managed to get his face above the surface long enough to take a gasp of air before something below him latched onto his his legs and pulled. Foul water ran into his mouth a second before he was dragged beneath the surface. How was the water this deep? He had thought it couldn't be more then five feet deep or so, but when he looked down he saw nothing but darkness. Darkness and a pale face.

Then more faces appeared, and more hands clung to his limbs. Human shapes, just like the one that had tried to grab him earlier, gripped him like anchors and pulled him into the depths of the swamp. Summoning all his strength, Yuri kicked and punched through the chilly water. He managed to throw some of them off, but for every spirit he dislodged, two more took its place.

The faint moonlight of the fake moon shone through the surface of the water, promising fresh air. It was only a foot from Yuri's face, but it may as well have been leagues. Lack of air made it harder to fight off his attackers and they dragged him down into black water.


	10. A Long Awaited Meeting

Yuri drifted. He lacked the strength to struggle anymore, so the hands loosened their grip. His hair floated around his hand in a cloud as he stared at the moonlight overhead. Dimly, he knew he should kick and go to the air, but none of his limbs would move. He clung to consciousness by a thread, but even that was fading fast. A distant thought said he should panic - he was drowning after all - but all he felt was the relaxing sway of cool water. The moonlight shimmered on the water. So pretty….

A hand broke the moon's reflection. It grabbed the back of Yuri's shirt and pulled. Seconds later, cold air hit his face and he gasped for air. His saviour pulled him through the water and onto the bank. Still barely conscious, he noticed nothing but how sweet the air was while he heaved it into his lungs. A door opened nearby and a woman's voice murmured, "Yuri, sweetheart, we need to move." She wrapped her arm around him to help him to his feet, and he stumbled through the door.

After two steps onto the hardwood floo, he collapsed again, coughing and heaving. His limp hair hung in a curtain around his face and water dripped from every surface and pooled beneath him. A gentle hand rubbed his back while he shivered and gasped for air.

It seemed to take ages before he could breathe normally again. When he finally stopped feeling like he was dying, Yuri took a few more deep breaths to be sure and then slowly raised his head. His mother sat beside him, concern clear on her face.

"Are you all right?"

Words clogged his throat. Here she was, the mother he'd stopped wondering about years ago, with her hand in his shoulder and love in her eyes. He wanted to assure her he was fine - both from drowning, and from everything else. He'd grown up fine, he was happy, he had friends and a family and she didn't need to worry about him. All that came out was a hoarse, "…Mom?"

"Oh, Yuri." She grabbed him, pulling his soaking head against her shoulder and squeezing so tightly it nearly cut off his air again. "Yuri…" she whispered. "Yuri, my Yuri, it's really you."

Yuri had had a terrible day. He was cold, sore, scared, and exhausted and even though they still needed to find a way out of here, he let himself indulge in a comfort he'd never had before and let his mother hug him. Sometimes people asked him if he missed his parents, and he always said you couldn't miss something you didn't remember having, but now that she was right in front of him, he retroactively missed over twenty years of affection and support life had cheated him out of. As she hugged him, she quietly hummed her song that could make even this dark world brighter.

After an eternity, Yuri pulled away. "I recognized that song, you know. It's been bugging me since I couldn't place it."

She smiled and then brushed a damp clump of hair behind his ear. "I used to sing it to you every night, as your great-grandmother used to do for me."

Yuri leaned back, looking around the room for the first time. They were in a sitting room of some sort, with scuffed floors and wooden chairs at an empty table. In one corner was a pallet with a thin pillow and a threadbare blanket, next to an empty wicker cradle. Behind him was the door, and his expression darkened as he thought of the remains of Ragou, or any of those spirits in the water, coming through after him. "Is it safe to stay here?"

Mom nodded. "Yes." She walked to the door and pushed it open.

"Don't-!"

On the other side was nothing but an empty hallway. "We're safe here, Yuri. I promise."

Yuri gaped at the door. "But… where did…?"

"Space in this realm doesn't line up on a simple one to one basis. Doors may not lead to the same place twice."

His confusion deepened. "But these things have been stalking me. I can hear them coming sometimes from previous rooms."

"And sometimes they do. This isn't your world, sweetheart. It doesn't follow the same rules."

"Clearly," he grumbled, looking down at his still bloody hands. The desire to embrace his mom nearly overwhelmed him, but he didn't want to get blood all over her. "I can't get this blood off."

Mom crouched and rested her hand on his shoulder. "The blood won't go away until you stop seeing it there."

"It's kind of hard to miss." He pulled his hands close to his chest to keep them away from her.

"That isn't what I mean. It's in your head, and in your heart."

"So I can just will my hands to clean up?"

She stood. "Sit down with me. I have a lot to explain."

Yuri followed her to the table, and then she pulled out a chipped bowl from the cupboard. "Rest your hands in here, Yuri, to catch the blood."

"Thanks." The red stood out brightly against the faded white.

Mom sat on the other side of the table and smiled. "So…."

Yuri lifted his head from the bowl and found her staring at him. "What is it?"

She smiled. "Nothing. I just… I can't believe how big you are. It feels like just yesterday I held you in my arms and now… you're a grown man."

Yuri analyzed her face, feeling the opposite. She couldn't be much older than Estelle. He was almost a head taller than her, and her face looked so young and childish. She was at least five years younger than him, but she was his mom. "It's nice to finally meet you. But, honestly I still don't know why you're here, or why anything is here. I basically have no idea why anything is happening, where I am, or how to get home."

She nodded slowly. "It's understandable that you would be alarmed. I'll explain everything."

Yuri pulled his chair a bit closer and made himself comfortable.

"The world we're in now is… not exactly the afterlife, but it's not the world of the living, either. It's a limbo, from which you can move on to the afterlife or return to the living world. That is not to say that anyone who has died can return to the living world. In order to return, we require a… an invitation."

"So… who invited you?"

"It's not an invitation you consciously give. Fifty years ago, when Melanie died, her grieving husband refused to let her go. He lived as if she was still with him, creating a space for her in the house despite her death. In doing so, he made the house inviting to death. The power of his delusion invited Melanie back from the afterlife, and a door appeared to give her a way back to him. For many years, that was enough. Melanie was the only soul he carried in his heart, so she was the only person who was drawn by his silent invitation."

"Cyril wrote that he decided to follow her. Do you mean he followed her in here?"

Mom nodded. "As far as I know. I was not here to see these events, but that would make sense. This world isn't a common limbo found across the world, you see. It's more like… the entry hall of the specific door you came across. Cyril would have walked hand in hand through the door with a guilt-free heart, and so crossed undeterred into the afterlife."

A thin layer of blood now covered the bottom of the bowl. Yuri gazed into it, starting to piece together his place in this. "So that's my problem, is it? I don't have a guilt-free heart."

Mom leaned across the table and rubbed his arm. "I'm afraid you don't. When you set foot in the house, the souls you carried so close to your heart activated the door again, and all the people you've never let go were drawn in. People you've killed… people you let down… and people you longed to see."

He'd never thought of himself as longing to see his mother, but he supposed that desire had always been there at the back of his brain, put aside and smothered for so long he stopped noticing it. The other parts made a lot more sense. Hardly a day went by when he didn't think about Ragou, Cumore, Barbos, Alexei, and the henchmen and accomplices he'd killed along the way. There was a lot of blood on his hands - enough to fill this bowl and more. No wonder the house was trying to kill him - it was filled with ghosts of people he'd killed.

"This is my fault, then?"

"Not entirely. One of your companions invited someone as well."

"Raven. He said he'd let all that go."

"I don't know what 'all that' is in his case. All I ever saw was a girl. I never spoke to her, but she seemed to care deeply about him."

Casey. Raven had said he'd like to see her again… well, looks like he got what he wanted. "Did he come in here?"

"Yes," Mom said with a nod. "He met her one night and asked her to explain what was going on. She couldn't speak freely in that world, so she led him up here where they could talk. He came here to learn what was happening."

"So where is he now?"

Her brow tightened. "I'm sorry, dearest. To be honest, my focus was entirely on you. I didn't pay attention to where he went. You haven't found his body in your world?"

Yuri shook his head. "No. We've searched pretty thoroughly."

She smiled and reassuringly patted his arm. "That means he's still alive. If he had moved on to the afterlife, his body would have been left behind and fallen back to the mortal world."

Yuri pictured Cyril's body lying face-up on the floor of the basement, directly under the door. He hadn't dropped dead there, then. He'd walked into death with Melanie, and then this world spat the empty shell back out. "That's good to hear. Finding Raven will be our next goal then." As long as he was alive, Yuri wasn't leaving without him. "I'm still not clear on what this place is, though. Why have I been seeing the things I am?"

"This world is a reflection of its inhabitants thoughts." Her face darkened with sadness. "The only reason things would try to kill you is if you felt, somewhere inside, that you deserved it."

"Oh. Huh." Well… you are a murderer. You've killed a lot of people and you would do it again.

"Yuri, I don't know your circumstances, but I know my son would never do anything warranting death. I don't know who these spirits haunting you are, but if you tell me, maybe I can help."

Part of him was afraid to explain, because if she knew he'd snuck out at night and murdered a man as a vigilante - twice - she might recant her professions of love. Like it or not, his hands were dirtied. It still amazed him his other friends forgave him for his actions, and it had very nearly destroyed his friendship with Flynn. She might be his mom, but could she forgive even this? Her face was so earnest as she waited, though. She really did want to know, so Yuri reluctantly began the story.

He tried to be as brief as possible, but there was a lot of context to explain. He found himself backtracking a lot, because she didn't know crucial things like who Flynn was or why blastia were bad now. By the time he finished telling the story, his clothes had dried.

When he finished, Mom silently rose and rounded the table. Yuri started to look up, but then she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. "You've been through so much."

He felt a little awkward sitting there being hugged without being able to do anything to reciprocate because his hands were so dirty. "Mom, it's ok. I'm fine."

She pulled away and leaned against the table. "I wish so much that I had been there for you throughout this, or even just your childhood."

"Yeah," he muttered. "Me too." It was weird to think how different life could have turned out if she hadn't died. What kind of person would he have grown into?

"I think I understand what's going on, though. Thank you for telling me."

"Hey, if you can make sense of it, it was my pleasure."

"You have much more baggage than an average person, which is why this place is so much wilder than normal. You have so many regrets, too. These regrets are taking physical form in here. Things you spend too much time dwelling on, or things you think about yourself, manifest in this world."

"I get it." He'd spent a lot of time wondering how he could have handled Alexei better, or if he could have stopped him before he hurt Estelle and so many others. If they'd prevented him from taking her in the first place, or if they'd stopped him at Baction, he wouldn't have ravaged Zaphias. His regret for allowing Alexei's power to attack the lower quarter had taken life in the crying boy he'd met earlier. "Those spirits that tried to drown me back there. They looked like knights."

Mom nodded. "Based on your story, I would guess they're the souls of the members of the Royal Guard you killed on your way to Alexei."

"But I don't think about them with regret. They were soldiers fighting on the opposing side. It's unfortunate, but that's how the world works." He frowned. "I don't feel regret for killing Alexei, either."

"I know. Dwelling on the dead in general, though, opened the door for anyone looking to come back for revenge on you."

There were a few choice words Yuri would like to say about ghosts trying to get revenge on him, but he didn't feel comfortable saying any of them in front of his mother. "The ones that've been stalking me since I got here. Who're they?"

She frowned deeply. "They would most likely be the ones most determined to make you pay. I only know who one of them is; the one who tried to strangle you before you came up. I recognized him."

Yuri scowled as his suspicion was confirmed. "Alexei. Man, I'd hoped I'd seen the last of that asshole." He wasn't sure about the other. Who else would be so determined to finish him off? Cumore? Barbos? He wasn't sure who he hoped it was. "What about this blood on my hands?"

"You feel your hands are irreversibly bloodied. Here, that feeling has been given physical manifestation."

"How do I get it off?"

"The same way you can stop the vengeful spirits from coming after you: you have to let go of your regrets."

Yuri frowned at the blood, rubbing his fingers together to squeeze some of it off. "These aren't some minor quibbles I can just brush off. I murdered people."

"I didn't mean for you to brush them off. There's a difference between accepting and learning from the past and letting it rule you. It should be your mentor, not your dictator."

Yuri's nod was slow and thoughtful. He understood what she meant, but it was harder to put into practice. He'd made a decision to walk down a path dangerously close to villainy, and if he let himself be comfortable with it, he could easily turn into the very thing he'd fought. Good intentions or not, he couldn't deny that people had died because of him, either from killing them directly or failing to stop the people who did. "Ok. Well, no offense but I think I'd rather face them head-on. I've fought them before and I can do it again."

Mom shook her head. "That won't work here."

"I'm not afraid of them. I'm tired of running. It's time to stand my ground and-"

"Yuri, I do not doubt that you are brave and strong, but you don't understand. You cannot win in a battle of strength against these foes. No matter how many times you strike them down, they will rise again. They've already died - what else can you hope to do to them? They'll wear you out until you lack the strength to stand and then they will kill you, slowly. You cannot fight those who are already dead, Yuri, and I cannot bear to see you try."

He wanted to argue more, but she was probably right. Even after nearly knocking Ragou's head off and impaling him on a branch, he hadn't died. Yuri let out a frustrated breath. "Is there any other option besides… accepting zen and kumbaya or whatever?"

"If we're lucky, we can make it to the exit before they catch up with you. Then, you must leave the house and never come back. As long as you remain close to the door, you'll be in danger."

"I can do that." He didn't like leaving the case before it was complete, but if all this shit was going down because of his presence, he didn't have a choice. "Let's just hope we're lucky, shall we?" He really hoped he wasn't preemptively stabbing himself in the foot by hoping luck worked in his favour for once. "Should we get going?"

"I think we can wait a little. Since I opened the door and carried you into this room, you didn't leave a trail of blood. It will take Alexei considerable time to find us. You've been running around for so long, and we may have to run again once we start moving, so you ought to rest."

"That sounds nice, yeah." Besides, as much as he wanted to get home, once he left this place, he would never have a chance to speak to his mother again. Sitting in comfort for a little extra time to properly catch up was worth the wait. Anyway, he'd only been here for… he guessed around four hours. He could spare a little longer.

Mom walked to the tiny kitchen area in the corner and returned with a cloth soaked in water from the kettle on the stove. "Your foot must be killing you. Let me help."

Yuri let her pull his leg onto the chair across from him and tug off his boot. She tsked as she pulled it off. "Didn't anyone ever teach you to tie your shoes properly?"

Yuri crossed his arms petulantly. "I like them this way. Faster to get on and it looks cool."

She pulled off his sock and then wrapped the warm cloth around his throbbing ankle. "It looks like a great way to sprain your ankle again."

Yuri rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mom."

"Can I get you anything? Tea? A blanket?"

"No, I'm good, thanks."

Her smile nearly blinded her and she sat down, resting her chin on her folded hands. "I'm sorry. I've never had a chance to dote on you before."

Yuri couldn't help returning the smile. "That's ok. I've never really been doted on before."

"How old are you, Yuri?"

"I'm twenty-three as of a few months ago."

Mom let out a long sigh. "Twenty-three…? Already? It seems like just yesterday you were only six months old…. Has it really been over twenty years since I lost you?"

She wasn't the only one surprised about ages though. Yuri still couldn't get over how baby-faced she was. "How old are you? Er… were you?"

"I was eighteen when I died," she said with a sad smile. "When you were born, I was still seventeen."

Yuri had been told his mother had still been a teenager, but it was so different seeing her in person. Despite being told, he'd always pictured her as an adult. She was practically a child herself! Yuri couldn't imagine Estelle having a child, and she was already older than his mom had been when he was born. She went through it alone, too, because Yuri knew he didn't have any grandparents. "I'm sorry. I probably really screwed up your life."

She rested her hand on his arm and met his eyes intently. "Yuri, don't think for one second I wish you hadn't been born. It's true that when I first realized I was pregnant, I was very frightened and distraught. Once you were born, though, I wouldn't have it any other way. In the past, I'd been drifting. I was raised by my grandmother, but after she died when I was twelve, I didn't have anywhere to go or anything to live for. When I got older, I became a prostitute so I would have some money and not have to live on the streets, but I was always living one day to the next. Then you were born, and suddenly I had a purpose in life. My own life wasn't going anywhere, but I thought if I gave you everything I could, raised you right and gave you the best that I had, maybe you could achieve more than I had. Making a better life for you was a goal that kept me going on the hard days." She broke into a smile. "When I was sick and realized I wasn't going to get better, my greatest regret was that if I left you an orphan, you wouldn't get the support you needed to reach a better life. But look at you now! You're the leader of a guild, you saved the world, your best friends are the commandant and the princess… I could never have dreamed you'd come so far. I couldn't be happier."

"I had a lot of help."

"I'm sure. I wish I had a chance to meet this Flynn person. He seems to have been a good friend to you."

Yuri folded his arms and harrumphed. "Yeah, he's great when he's not being pig-headed and self-righteous."

Mom just smiled knowingly, and then said, "Tell me more about your life."

"Ok, like what?"

She shrugged. "Anything. Everything. I missed your whole life and this is my only chance to find out how my baby grew up."

"Uh…" That was a lot of information to cram into one conversation. "Well, I'm told I learned to walk when I was eleven months old." After that, Yuri had a lot of talking to do. He'd thought explaining the journey had taken a while, but he had twenty years of stories to tell and his mother was interested in all of them. She wanted to hear about the family suppers with the Scifos and the time her got Chirpee Pox when he was eight, which kids he had a crush on when he was twelve and where he was stationed during his stint in the Knights. His mouth was dry when he finally finished talking.

"Sorry. I'm not sure how much more I can say right now." He was sure the sun would have risen by now if that was a thing that happened here.

"Of course. I'm sorry to make you go on for so long. What about you? Do you have any questions for me?"

Not really. He'd already knew most of the details about her life from Hanks and other people who'd known her. There was just one thing he still didn't know. "Well… do you know who my dad is?" It wasn't really an important fact, he just… felt like he ought to know. He had no intentions of actually meeting the guy, but it would be nice to know if he might be at risk for baldness, for example.

Mom's face fell. "No. I'm sorry, Yuri, I don't. I wondered quite frequently while I was pregnant and when you were small, but I saw a lot of clients in the weeks before realizing I was pregnant, and I didn't even get all of their names."

"That's fine. I was just curious. I'm probably better off not knowing."

"I'm sorry." She hung her head. "I know it must be hard, hanging out with people like the princess, when all you can say about your own background is that your mother was a whore…."

Yuri frowned. "Don't call yourself that."

She shrugged. "It's what I am. Or, was."

Yuri shook his head. "Maybe so, but when you say it like that… it seems like it's defining you. A lot of people would turn their noses up at the things you did, but that doesn't mean that's all you are."

"I admit, that's something I worried about when you were a baby. I feared what others might say to you for being the son of a whore, or what you would think of me once you were old enough to understand."

"What? No!" Yuri started to stand, putting pressure on his ankle. The cloth had long cooled off, but the pain had dulled up until now. He winced and re-settled, starting to reach for her but pulling back his bloody hands. "Mom, it never even crossed my mind to be ashamed of you. I know Estelle would never look down on you either. You were a teenager, you were alone, and you supported yourself the only way you could. Then you did the same while also taking care of a baby all on your own! You're amazing."

She raised her eyes with a slight twinge in her cheeks.

"I mean it, Mom. I owe everything to you, and I'm proud of you for supporting us as well as you could." Meeting her eyes so she knew he was dead serious, he said, "I would never be ashamed to tell people about you."

The twinge turned into a full smile. "Thank you, sweetheart."

She gestured around the room. "This is where we lived, you know? Well, it's a recreation of it. After Alexei dragged me back here, I stepped into the next room and found it. I think it moulded itself around my memories. You used to sleep in that little wicker basket by my bed."

Yuri smirked. "Not sure I'd fit anymore."

"It was nice. When you woke up crying, you were only an arm's reach away." She pursed her lips. "And boy did you do that a lot."

Yuri's smirk slipped. "I did?"

"You screamed every night for four months straight."

"Ah… is it too late to apologize for that?"

"Pass your apology along to the Comet's innkeeper, or Mrs. Hanks. They often watched you during the night when I was… working."

Yuri was surprised Hanks had never brought up his propensity for screaming and crying as an infant. "Well, if it makes you feel better, I definitely grew out of that. I haven't cried all night for at least, oh, six weeks or so."

Mom rolled her eyes. "I see. And who do I have to thank for influencing your sense of humour?"

"That's all me I'm afraid."

"I'm so -" she froze.

Yuri was about to question her, but then he heard the footsteps too. Dread spiked.

"He can't have found you already."

Yuri hissed the name. "Alexei."

"We have to go." She jumped to her feet and grabbed Yuri's sock and shoe. To save him getting blood all over them, she put them on for him. Yuri wouldn't have allowed this level of doting from anyone but his mother. "Remember what I said about facing him head on?"

"Yeah, I got it." The footsteps came from the direction of the door they'd entered through, but Mom led him to a side door.

"I'm going to take you to the exit. We'll have to pass through three or four rooms to get there. Stay close to me and if we get in trouble, remember what I said about letting go of the thoughts that give the monsters strength."

Yuri nodded, hoping it wouldn't come to that. Alexei's footsteps were getting close, but he'd kept up a slow pace all evening. He probably had no idea Yuri had found his mother and was getting help from her, so they would have time to outrun him and get to the exit. He'd have to say goodbye to his mom there, but now wasn't the time to worry about that.

Mom gave the room one last look, eyes shining with memories. Yuri took a second to glance back as well, and for a moment he thought about a life growing up in this little room with a mother who loved him. They could have been happy here.

It was too late to pine over the life he might have had. Mom opened the door.

And was greeted by Alexei. Before Yuri could protest that a second ago he'd been approaching from the other door and that the physics of this place really didn't make any sense, Alexei smacked Mom across the face and knocked her aside. She stumbled and fell to the floor, and Alexei stepped into the room.

Yuri took a step toward Mom, but Alexei stepped between them. "Yuri Lowell. At last, we meet again."

Yuri sneered at the man. "You looked better last time we met." Death did not become the former commandant. The front of his uniform bore deep red stains, and a large cut ran across his chest from where Yuri had landed the final blow. It was obvious why he'd never let his face be seen clearly, because the once handsome features were misshapen and crudely reformed. At least he was still in one piece - Yuri had half-expected he'd be flat as a pancake after being crushed beneath the blastia.

"You were quite the thorn in my side, Lowell."

Yuri glared back with venom. "Yeah, and you just punched my mother. I think we both have scores to settle."

"Yuri, run!" Mom, one hand on her cheek, had risen to her knees. "Make a break for it!"

"Be quiet, woman! You've gotten in my way too many times."

A quick glance of the room showed nothing Yuri might use as a weapon, but he still had his fists. "You're dumber than I thought if you think I'm gonna let you get away with treating my mom like that."

Alexei let out a chuckle. "What do you intend to do, Lowell? Smear blood on me?"

The last time Yuri faced Alexei, he'd had the support of all his friends backing him up, was fully equipped with weapons and healing items, Alexei had been an ordinary mortal man, and it had still been one of the toughest fights of his life. Standing before him know, with his bloody hands clenched in angry fists, wobbling on a busted ankle, he felt very small and outmatched. That was ok; he didn't have to kill Alexei this time, just hold him off long enough to give Mom a chance to escape.

"Mom, get out! I'll be right behind!" He lunged at Alexei, sending his fist flying at the bastard's face. It was like punching a marble statue. The bones of his hand rattled but Alexei hardly seemed fazed, even by the blood left behind and dripping down his cheek. His next punch landed squarely on Alexei's chest, but he didn't even budge. The bastard was toying with him, Yuri realized. He hadn't even tried to block those blows.

Yuri's fist flew again, but this time Alexei stepped to the side, snatched Yuri's arm out of the air, twisted, and heaved him off his feet. Yuri heard something pop as Alexei tossed him over his shoulder and then he slammed into the ground, dazed.

"Yuri!" Mom ran toward him but Alexei shoved her out of the way.

"I have no interest in you, woman. Get out of my way."

Yuri coughed as his senses came back to him. Everything hurt, especially the new pain in his shoulder that radiated down his arm. His eyes darted to the side and he winced; that looked dislocated. A torrent of nasty words he'd shout at Alexei were his mother not present streamed through his mind. What the hell was he supposed to do to beat this guy? Mom was right - he couldn't beat him in a physical fight. Alexei was hard enough to defeat when he was mortal, but now Yuri would have to chop him into pieces just to earn enough time to run away.

Fighting might be hopeless, but Yuri didn't have any other options. With his busted ankle, he wouldn't be able to run anyway. He could hold him off to let Mom escape, but he had a feeling she wasn't going to leave without him no matter what. All he could do was keep fighting and hope something came to him.

Getting up again was a struggle, but he managed to sit up. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, his shoulder a hot flare of pain.

"Amazing," Alexei said, strolling toward him. "Are you still trying to win? At least I can't say I was initially defeated by a slacker. However, as I'm sure you'll see, your victory from years ago shall be temporary."

A couple of steps from him, Yuri's leg kicked out and slammed into Alexei's ankle. At the same time, Yuri grabbed Alexei's raised foot and yanked. This combination threw him off balance and Alexei toppled to the ground.

"Ha!" Yuri pushed himself to his feet. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen!"

He only had seconds before Alexei would get up again. Yuri limped to the still-open door, while his mom approached it from the other side. Maybe if they got out of this room and slammed the door shut, Alexei would be left behind in a distant corner of the world, like the swamp with Ragou.

They didn't make it. Yuri heard a gasp and turned around. Alexei clutched his mother, who kicked and fought to break away.

"Go, Yuri! Don't worry about me! He can't-"

Alexei gripped the side of her head and twisted. A loud snap filled the room and then Alexei tossed her body to the side.

"Mom!" Yuri threw himself at Alexei with a roar.

He managed to land one solid punch, and then Alexei grabbed his elbow and twisted him around. Yuri's back bumped against Alexei's chest, and and Alexei's fingers dug painfully into his elbow. His arm was so twisted his fingers brushed the back of his head and he gritted his teeth against the strain.

"I hope you enjoyed your victory, Lowell. It's time to pay for everything you took from me and the empire."

Yuri snarled over his shoulder and tried to pull out of his grip. "What I took away? You nearly destroyed the world!"

"And I would have fixed it, creating an empire more powerful than ever before, had you and your little band of fools not interfered."

"You really are nuts, you know that, right?" Keeping him talking was Yuri's only chance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mom move. She was just as dead as Alexei, so lethal wounds wouldn't keep her down. If he could just hold Alexei off until Mom was able to get up, maybe they'd have a chance.

Alexei's other hand closed around his throat. "Accuse me all you want. Soon enough, we will both be dead."

Yuri's throat already hurt from the previous strangling attempt, so when Alexei's grip tightened the bruises throbbed. His fingers dug into Yuri's skin, cutting off all access to air. He fought as much as he could. Kicking was either impossible or pathetically weak depending on which foot he tried, and his one free hand grasped uselessly at his chest. With his shoulder dislocated, he couldn't raise it high enough to be any use.

He'd suffocated far too many times this evening, but it was looking like this would be the last. Spots drifted through his fading vision and his chest was close to bursting. What happened when you died in limbo? He didn't want to find out, but it looked like he was about to.

Something twanged, and then wind whipped by his ear. Alexei grunted as something slammed into his chest. His grip on Yuri loosened, and Yuri took his chance to pull away. Air sank gratefully into his lungs and he hit the door frame. Sore and still light-headed, he wasn't sure what to make of the arrow sticking out of Alexei's shoulder.


	11. Some Sunny Day

Another arrow zinged through the open door just as Alexei yanked the first one out of his chest. Seconds later, the archer himself charged into the room.

Surprised, oxygen-deprived, and relieved, Yuri couldn't help laughing. "Raven?!"

"Hey, kid! See the mess ya get yourself inta without me?"

"Schwann," Alexei spat. "I was expecting to get rid of one cretin today, but I'll happily bring you back to the afterlife with me as well."

"Oh, yeah? I feel bad for whoever this Schwann fellow is, then." He converted his bow into a pair of blades and faced Alexei with a deadly glare.

Alexei unsheathed his sword and made his move. Raven met his attack with a clank of swords, while Yuri limped to his Mom's side and dropped to his knees.

"Kid," Raven grunted between blocking Alexei's attacks, "take your lady friend and get out of here. I'll catch up."

"What, and leave all the fun to you?" Yuri didn't even both looking up for that comment, his attention focused on his mother. He wanted to touch her and comfort her, but his hands were still bloody. In a low voice, he said, "Mom? Are you all right?"

Her pained eyes opened, and she reached for her head. It was still twisted at an angle that made Yuri's stomach squirm, but she gripped the sides of her head tightly and popped it back into place with a crunch. "Sweetheart, I'm fine," she whispered, though she was obviously still in pain. "You should have run."

"Sorry. Guess I didn't grow up accustomed to following orders from you."

"That's your friend Raven, right?" She sat up, one hand still on the side of her neck for support.

"Yeah. You need to get out of here, and I'll help Raven. Then we'll all make a run for the exit."

Mom gave him an annoyed look. "What help do you think you're going to be, sweetheart? You only have two functioning limbs."

Behind him, Raven grunted as one of Alexei's attacks grazed his shoulder. Raven said he'd fought Alexei in a duel once and was soundly trounced. Alexei was going to win this fight, and as much as Yuri hated to admit it, his mom was right. He wasn't in any condition to be a valuable reinforcement. Whoever stayed behind to hold Alexei up while the others escaped was bound to be killed, but without that defence, Alexei would chase and kill them both. They couldn't outrun him, they couldn't defeat him, and even if by some miracle they did overcome him, he couldn't die. The hopelessness of the situation sank into his chest.

"It's up to you, Yuri." She rested her other hand on his shoulder. "You can banish Alexei. He's only here because you allow him to be."

Yuri punched the floorboards. "It's not that easy!" How could he simply stop feeling bad about the people he killed? He'd done the job no one wanted to do, and wishing it away wouldn't clean the blood from his hands. From monsters who'd deserved death like Cumore and Ragou, people who forced his hand like Yeager, and those who asked for it like the Don, he'd killed too many people to just push it aside. "I made the choice to become this person."

"I know you've killed people, but that doesn't make you invariably a killer."

"What, you want me to say it's in the past? It doesn't matter if they're dead because there's nothing I can do about it anymore?" Behind him, Raven was struggling to hold Alexei off. If Raven died, that would be on him, too.

"No. Accept the past, learn from it, take responsibility for your actions, but don't define yourself by it. You said you and Flynn were on different paths, but I don't think life works like that. Our lives aren't locked into established paths of light or dark - they're fluid. Being a person who gets his hands dirty doesn't mean that's all you can ever be. Things you do don't define who you are. You told me that yourself, didn't you? I am not a whore, and you are not a murderer."

Alexei and Raven were getting closer and closer. Raven was clearly losing ground and within a minute or two, Alexei would be on them. Yuri considered grabbing Mom, making a run for it when they still could, and hoping Raven took the hint and joined them.

Mom flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him tightly against her. "If you look in the mirror and see a killer, and fear that that's what everyone else sees when they look at you, then know that you're wrong. No matter what you do, you will always be my precious son. Whatever choices you make, you're still my Yuri and no amount of dirty work will ever change that. I will always love you."

Yuri closed his eyes and leaned against her. For a moment, he didn't hear the raging fight only yards away. He took breaths so deep they hurt his lungs. Unconditional love was not something he was familiar with. Never having a family of his own, he'd had to earn the one he'd made through being a good friend and mutually supporting each other. If he let himself become a bad person, they would abandon him, just like foster families had passed him off to someone else as soon as he became too difficult as a small child.

But that wasn't the case here. Mom would probably still love him even if - heaven forbid - he did outright become a villain. It was because she was truly his family, but Yuri felt the same way about Flynn. He tried to consider if there was anything Flynn could do that could make Yuri stop loving him, and came up short. Even when he was furious with him, he still loved Flynn. Estelle, Flynn, and the others were so much more than just friends - they were his family. If they thought of him even close to the same way he saw them, then maybe unconditional love wasn't such a new concept to him after all.

That was why he'd been so worried about crossing the line into being a bad person. Unconsciously, he'd framed it as a question of whether he'd get to keep his family. Mom hugged him tightly against her, silently reminding him the love wasn't a game of subtracting bad actions from the good and sticking around only if the result was a positive number.

Good? Bad? He'd done a lot of things in his life, and he'd be better off letting his friends worry about whether they still wanted to stick around. It was true that there was a lot of blood on his hands, and it would never wash off because the lives he'd taken could never come back. But if he had the love of his friends and of his mother, he realized it didn't matter.

Light glowed through the window. The sudden brightness made Raven stumble, giving Alexei and opening. Yuri shouted in alarm as Alexei slashed his sword at Raven, but the blade swiped harmlessly through him.

Alexei dropped the sword with a clank, and then stared at his translucent hand in alarm.

Yuri pulled away from Mom and then gripped her hand with his now-clean one. "Sorry, Alexei. Consider your invitation revoked."

As the room got brighter, Alexei grew fainter. Fury written on his face, he strode toward Yuri, hands outstretched. "You impertinent…" He faded from existence before finishing the threat.

Yuri breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't sure how long he'd be able to keep his dark thoughts at bay, and knew that it would probably be months before he eliminated them completely, but for the moment, he felt lighter than he had in years.

He also felt more sore than he had in months. Both his ankle and shoulder were on fire, his throat hurt with every breath, and countless other aches littered his body. Raven slumped to the floor next to him, looking similarly pooped. He had more than a few bleeding cuts from narrow-misses with Alexei.

"Good work, kid. I dunno what ya did, but thanks."

"I should be saying that to you. I hate to admit it, Old Man, but you really saved my neck back there." He massaged his throat, and gingerly swallowed. He'd been hoarse already, and a second attempt to strangle him hadn't done him any favours.

"Any time. Here, let me help you out."

"With wha-"

Raven grabbed his left arm in one hand and shoulder in the other, and with a loud pop snapped his shoulder into place.

Yuri shouted a startled curse, and then massaged his aching shoulder. It hurt considerably less now, but the relocation had hurt like a bitch. "Hell, warn me next time before you do that."

Raven just chuckled. "Sure thing, kid. Now, who is this lovely lady with you?" He gave her his signature grin. "I don't believe we've met, darlin'."

"Knock it off, Old Man." Yuri rarely minded Raven's flirtatious behaviour, but this was one case he wouldn't stand for. "This is my mom."

"Oh!" His eyebrows almost disappeared under his hair. "I see, yeah, that's how it is, I get it. Nice ta meet'cha, Ms. Lowell."

She shook his hand. "Hello. Any friend of Yuri's is a friend of mine."

Raven turned to Yuri. "So what are ya doin' here, anyway?"

"I followed Mom up," he explained. "Alexei tried to kill me, then he attacked her, then I realized who she was… long story. What about you? How'd you find us?"

"I was talkin' with Casey, and then suddenly everything got dark. She said someone else musta come up and I figured it was one of you guys, and it was startin' ta look pretty spooky so I figured I'd better go find ya. She loaned me her bow and then I searched the rooms until I saw ya runnin' in the distance. I tried ta call, but I guess you didn't hear."

"That was you!" The first stalker had been Alexei, but it seemed he might have avoided a lot of trouble if he'd slowed down and let the other one catch up with him.

"I lost you after a swamp, but then I spotted Alexei and figured he'd lead me straight to ya."

"Thank you very much," Mom said. "We owe you our lives, and I'm pleased that Yuri has such loyal friends."

"It was my pleasure, darlin'. Now, I'd like ta find Casey again if ya don't mind. Barely talked ta her for ten minutes before you barged in and ruined everythin'."

That… didn't add up. Yuri frowned, a flicker of uncertainty lighting in his brain. "What do you mean, ten minutes? Didn't you follow her up here?"

"Sure. I followed her up, we talked a bit, and then you showed up."

The uncertainty turned to worry. "Old Man, how long have you been here?"

Raven shrugged. "Couple hours, maybe. Like I said, you showed up only 'bout ten minutes after I arrived."

Yuri's heart skipped a beat when the implications of Raven's statement sank in. "When I followed Mom up, you had been missing for over a week."

Raven stared at him. "What? Nah… it'd been ten minutes, tops."

Yuri looked to Mom in alarm. She stared back with wide eyes, and then shook her head. "Oh, no. I knew time moved differently between the worlds, but I had no idea it was this severe."

Yuri jumped to his feet, wincing, and then helped Mom up. "We need to go. If ten minutes here is over a week back home…. They must be worried sick about us."

"Follow me. Getting to the exit will be very simple now that you've banished the darkness."

This time, Yuri didn't stop to say goodbye to the room he was born in. There was no use pondering the family he might have had, since he'd found a different one that was just as good. In the next room, they found a broad, grassy field with rolling hills in the distance. Fluffy clouds drifted across the sky-blue ceiling and he could even feel the heat on his face from the false sun.

Mom and Raven walked briskly forward, while Yuri limped behind. He was entirely certain that the amount of stress he'd put on his still-healing ankle tonight was not medically recommended and the more he relaxed from the fire of the fight, the more it slowed him down. Raven pulled Yuri's arm over his shoulders, and Yuri reluctantly used Raven as a crutch to hop across the field.

From there they crossed a beach, where Yuri struggled across warm, white sand. Salty water lapped the shore, even though he could tell that the endless ocean was actually a mural on a wall thirty feet away. They crossed a living room filled with flowers, and then entered a stairwell. They stopped on the landing, under a crystal chandelier heavier than Yuri himself. Light glinted off the tiny pieces of crystal and on the tiled floor of the landing. To the left and right, marble stairs led up or down into darkness.

"This is the exit," Mom said. "If you go up, you will enter the afterlife. If you go down, you'll return to the mortal world. This is where we must part ways."

As eager as Yuri was to get home and reassure his friends he was ok, it seemed like he'd just met his mother. There was still so many more things to say to her. "Are you sure you can't come with us?"

She shook her head. "My time is over, Yuri. I'm happy to move on, and I don't want you to waste your life lurking in that old empty house just to see me. Besides, this isn't the end. I'll see you again someday."

Yuri pulled away from Raven so he could hug her. "Yeah. Hopefully not for a long, long time. Then you can introduce me to my grandparents."

"I'll look forward to it. But, you're right: a long time from now. I can't wait to hear how many more adventures you'll have had when we meet again." She squeezed him tightly and whispered in his ear. "I love you so much, Yuri. Never forget that. No matter what you think of yourself or what others might call you, you will always be my little boy and I love you more than anything."

Yuri pulled away and kissed her forehead. "I love you too, Mom. Thanks for everything."

She smiled, fighting back tears. "Now go on. Your friends are worried about you. I'll see you again some day, and until then… have a fantastic life, sweetheart."

Yuri grinned and nodded, and then turned away before he found some excuse to stay longer. Raven said nothing as they descended the stairs, and Yuri didn't give in to the temptation to look back. As they got lower, the shadows loomed like a fog. As they stepped into darkness, Yuri couldn't even see his feet in front of him. Just as he wondered how far down they would have to go, his foot came down on empty air. He had only a second to think, shit, before he toppled into darkness.

* * *

Yuri opened his eyes slowly. He felt like he'd slept for years. Then he remembered where he'd come from, and bolted upright. Shit, it hadn't been years had it?

Next to him, Raven sat up and rubbed his head. "Geeze, how's that for a rude awakenin'? Couldn't just walk out, could we?"

They were in the silver room, lying right on top of the human-shaped stain Cyril had left on the floor. When Yuri noticed that, he scrambled away. "Looks like we made it back, though."

"Sure does. Wonder how long we've been gone?"

"Better find out." He stiffly got to his feet. The world they'd been in might not have been entirely real, but it seemed injuries carried over. After two strangling attempts and not doing anything to preserve his voice in the aftermath, any amount of talking aggravated his throat. He could only imagine how red his neck must be. As they headed to the door, he said, "Hey, Old Man… sorry about interrupting your chat with Casey."

"Nah, it's fine. If ya hadn't of come, I mighta been missin' for months."

"Let's just hope we haven't been."

They hiked up the stairs and out of the basement. When Yuri stepped into the kitchen, the first thing he saw was a woman with her back to him, pouring a glass of milk. For a moment he was confused, but then recognized the orange hair. "Sodia?"

She jumped, dropping the pitcher of milk and splashing it across the table. "Yuri Lowell?!"

Yuri waved after she spun around. "Yo. Long time no see."

"Where did you come from?"

Yuri jerked his thumb behind him. "From the basement."

Her shock morphed into irritation. "That isn't what I mean. When did you…? Oh, come with me."

Yuri and Raven followed her out of the kitchen. Sodia looked the same as always, which Yuri took as reassurance that not too much time had passed. At the most, it could have been a couple of years. He'd been half-afraid they'd find all their friends grey-haired and the world had moved on without them. When they reached the entrance hell, Yuri heard a familiar shout.

"I'll get the recordings! Meet me there in five minutes!"

At the top of the stairs, Rita disappeared around a corner a second before Yuri had a chance to call out. She looked the same as always, too, bringing him more relief. They left the house and stepped into sunshine. The lawn had been slashed down and Knight tents littered the field.

"What are all you guys doing here?" Yuri asked Sodia.

"Just a moment. Commandant!" Sodia ran ahead, leaving Yuri and Raven standing near the front steps, at what was now the beginning of a road through camp.

A minute later, Flynn ran around the side of a tent, armour clanking. He paused when he spotted them, and then the brightness of his smile challenged the sun. "Yuri!" He cleared the distance to them in seconds and pulled Yuri into a bear hug. His armour crushed Yuri's sore muscles and cut off his air.

"Ack!" he coughed. "Easy, Flynn, I've nearly suffocated three times in the past few hours already."

Flynn let him go immediately. "I'm sorry, that was unprofessional of me." He kept one hand on Yuri's shoulder, looking him up and down like he thought Yuri would vanish if he let go.

"Hey, calm down," Yuri said. "It's really me, in the flesh."

"Yes. I'm sorry. It's just…" His smile wavered and his fingers tightened around Yuri's shoulder. "I thought you were dead."

Yuri's chest tightened. Fearing the answer, he asked, "How long have we been gone?"

Flynn raised an eyebrow. "You don't know?"

"It's a long story. How long?"

"A little over three months."

Damn. He'd feared worse, but… damn. The pain had been clear in Flynn's face when he'd said he thought they were dead. If their places were reversed, he couldn't imagine the grief of days passing and still no sign of his best friend, hope gradually dying.

"How did you get hurt? Where have you been?"

"Hold your horses," Raven said. "Maybe we oughta sit down first."

"Yes, of course. Follow me." He pulled Yuri's arm over his shoulders to help him limp to the largest tent, thankfully close to the door. Inside, Flynn gave Yuri the one chair and Raven sat on the desk. He was clearly itching with questions, but restrained himself and fetched a pitcher of water from the corner first. "Here," he said, pouring a glass. "You sound terrible."

Yuri downed the entire glass in one big gulp. "Thanks."

"I sent Sodia to find Lady Estellise and the others. She should be here in a few minutes to heal your injuries." Flynn looked between them, concern etched into his face. As an experienced soldier, he could tell when people had been through some shit. "What in the world happened? You've been missing for over three months, and now you just show up in the basement?"

"That's a really long story," Yuri rasped.

"The short version is that were in some alternate dimension full of ghosts," Raven supplied, which only deepened Flynn's confusion. "We'll give ya the full story when the others show up, capeesh?"

"Very well."

"What's going on here?" Yuri asked. "When did you get here?"

"I came as soon as I got your letter. I knew that if you were actually asking me for help, the situation must be quite serious. I informed Lady Estellise I was going to Dahngrest, and she immediately insisted on coming."

Yuri smiled in satisfaction. Called it.

"She and Miss Mordio accompanied me here. When we arrived, your friends explained the situation. You had been missing for about a week and a half at that point and they were getting desperate. Miss Mordio examined the door and eventually called in a team of researchers to help the study. I brought reinforcements from Zaphias to protect the field laboratory they established here, as well as scour the house and forest for any sign of you."

"Any luck figurin' out how that door works?"

Flynn shook his head. "So far, no. I believe they've reached some hypotheses, but when she tried to explain I didn't understand a word of it."

Yuri chuckled. "That's Rita for you."

Raven started to ask another question, but then the tent flap burst open and Estelle tore into the room. "Yuri! Oh, Yuri, I was so worried about you!" She hugged him even tighter than Flynn.

He wheezed, "Ah, Estelle, ow, loosen up a bit…"

"Oh no!" She pulled away with fear in her eyes. "Oh, you're hurt! Where are you injured? I'll heal you."

Behind her, Karol, Repede, Judith, and Rita smiled at them. "I'm so glad you guys are back," Karol said. "I was really worried."

"Where did you go?" Judith asked.

"Through the door," Raven explained as Estelle diligently healed all Yuri's bumps and bruises.

Rita's eyes lit up. "You were seriously back there? You need to tell me everything."

"Yeah," Karol said. "I want to know where you guys were all this time!"

Raven explained. Even after healing, Yuri's vocal cords were inflamed and Estelle forbade him from talking unless necessary. He supplied additions when needed, but most of the things only he knew were parts he'd rather keep private anyway. Raven had gotten enough of an explanation for how the door worked from Casey to satisfy Rita.

At the end of the story, his friends gathered around and unloaded affection on them both. Flynn was going to want to talk to him later about his mom, but for now he was happy to just appreciate all the love overflowing from them. His mother may have been his last living blood relative, but it would be wrong to say Yuri didn't have a family.

* * *

A few days later, Pavel met with Brave Vesperia in their office. Yuri hadn't been to the house since they left the day he and Raven returned, and he had no interest in returning. For now, he was pretty sure he had his thoughts under control, but being around that door again was too risky. The last thing he wanted was to give Alexei another invitation in.

"I'm sorry it turned out like this," Pavel mumbled at the table. "I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I'm really sorry, Yuri."

"Don't worry about it," Yuri said with a wave of his hand. "When a guild takes a job, they accept the possibility of getting hurt on it. Lots of our missions involve fighting monsters - this was nothing out of the ordinary."

"Yeah, don't feel bad," Karol said. "Yuri's had way worse."

"Well… if you insist. Still, I'm giving you fifteen percent of the sale."

There was nothing they could do to get rid of the door. Flynn had tried using a battering ram on it when he arrived to no avail. Rita eventually had all the walls around it torn down, until it was just a lone wooden door in the middle of empty space. Even then, it wouldn't open. Yuri hadn't been up to see it, but Flynn had said it was very odd. Even though both sides of the door were exposed, only darkness could be seen under the crack. The ghost problem had disappeared while Yuri was in the other world, but with a door everyone claimed was cursed, there wasn't much chance of selling the house to a family. Luckily, Pavel had found another buyer. The association of mages purchased the property, and Rita claimed it would be the site of otherworldly research for years.

"Thank you very much." Judith accepted the money before Karol could protest the extra five percent.

"You really shouldn't pay us that much," Karol said. "We hardly did anything. The situation isn't solved, and it turned out most of it was caused by us anyway."

"I promised, didn't I? Besides, you did figure out what was causing the haunting, even if it turns out we can't fix it. You figured out what happened to Cyril, too."

"But, come to think of it…" Karol said, frowning, "I'm confused. You came to us because you thought the house was haunted the night you spent there. But, if the ghosts didn't show up until we got there…."

"Actually, uh, I think I figured that out on my own," Pavel said. He rubbed his fingers together and inspected a whirl on the table. "You said the door brought in the spirits of people you miss, right? Like… people you can't get out of your heart. I thought, maybe, when I was there… it was my parents. They only died recently, and I've been kind of lost since they died. I think they were trying to talk to me."

"That's probably it," Yuri said. "Don't tear yourself up over it, though. Ghosts find it very hard to actually vocalize in this world. You would have had to go into the world beyond to speak to them, and I don't think you'd want to do that."

Pavel shuddered. Yuri hadn't told him very much about what was back there, but he'd said enough. "You're right."

"It's just as well you sold the house to the mages," Yuri said. "Even if we got rid of the ghosts, it would be hard to sell a house where people died like that. No one would ever want to use Melanie's bedroom, and I don't have a clue how to clean that stain in the basement."

"Yeah… good point." Pavel bobbed his head. "I'm glad Melanie is at peace now. I never knew her, but she was still family."

"She's been at peace for a while, though," Judith said.

"That's right, you said it wasn't her after all. You didn't mention, though, who was it?"

Karol and Judith looked to Yuri to answer. He shrugged with a practiced air of coolness. "Who knows? Some woman who drifted through the gap, I guess." There were just things he didn't want to talk about with strangers. It had been an emotional meeting, and he didn't feel like sharing it with others. His friends knew, but that was different. They were family. "The important thing is that your great-aunt has been in peace ever since Cyril died. Leaving her body unburied apparently wasn't causing her great distress."

"I still think that's weird," Karol said. "Like… she led him to his death. Didn't she want him to live? Why would she encourage him to follow her into death?"

"Maybe she saw how unhappy he was," Judith said. "His grief must have been monumental to summon a doorway to the afterlife. She probably saw that he was taking no steps to deal with his grief, even after decades, and thought it would be best if he joined her in the next life."

"It's amazing she still wanted him after all that," Karol said. "Leaving her body in her room, pretending she was still alive, and locking himself up in that house was really creepy."

Yuri crossed his arms and leaned back. "Sometimes, love really is unconditional."

* * *

Yuri sat in his window when the door knocked. Since he'd seen Flynn walk by on the street below, he called, "It's open!"

"Hey." Flynn stopped halfway into the room and smiled at him.

Yuri scowled. "What? Is there something on my face?"

Flynn shook his head. "No, you're fine. It's just… I'm really happy to see you. I'd almost convinced myself finding you again was just a dream."

Flynn had left Dahngrest the day after Yuri and Raven returned from beyond the door. Now that Yuri was found, he didn't need to keep bullshitting an excuse about needing to oversee the security for breakthrough scientific research. Yuri had taken a short break before heading out on another mission with the rest of the guild and generally getting back to life. It had been two months since they reappeared, and he was finally in Zaphias again.

"I told you I was fine."

Flynn sat in the chair by the window. "I know that for you, you were gone for a night. But for the rest of us… Yuri, you were missing for three months. That's more than twice the length of your disappearance after Zaude. I really thought…" He hung his head.

Yuri lightly kicked Flynn's shoulder. "Ah, come on, I wouldn't die in a silly way like that." He didn't mention how much of a close call it had been.

"We all thought you and Raven were dead. Even Estelle and Karol, who insisted we'd find you alive whenever the subject came up, started doubting by the end. My biggest concern was whether your body would ever show up to give us something to bury."

Yuri sat silently as the sun streaming through the window practically made Flynn's blond head glow. It was difficult to conceptualize that three months had passed without him. When they'd first gotten out, he kept finding himself referencing comments made "the other day" to find that Karol barely remembered the conversation from so many months ago. For him, it had been a frightening few hours. For his friends, it had been three months of worry and dwindling hope. "…Sorry."

Flynn pulled his head up. "It's fine. I know it wasn't your fault. Actually, that makes it twice now that Alexei has done this to us."

Yuri was about to comment that it wasn't Alexei's fault he had gone missing after Zaude, but quickly held his tongue. That was a conversation for a much later day. "I'll be happy not to face that bastard again. You think he was bad when you last saw him? Try covered in blood and immortal."

Flynn winced. "I don't envy you. I never did get a chance to talk to you about what happened, though. Estelle wouldn't let you talk to me."

"Excuse me for getting strangled - twice. My throat was a bit sore."

"You know I'm not upset with you."

"Heh, yeah. When you're actually upset with me, you let me know."

Flynn gave him one of his looks. "You've given me a lot of reasons to get experienced with it."

"And yet you still think yelling at me will change anything? What's that saying about true idiocy being trying the same thing and expecting different results? Anyway, what's there to tell?"

"Well…" He leaned back and folded his hands. "You said you met your mother. What was she like?"

Yuri watched a bird preening itself on the windowsill next door. "I don't know what to say. She was my mom. She was… nice. Kind. She helped me a lot. It was almost surreal, this woman I've never seen before loving me so much. A nice kind of surreal, though." He glanced back at Flynn, who seemed to be forcing a smile. "What's with that face?"

Flynn's face went through a series of contortions before finally settling on a frown. "It's dumb. I know what you faced in that world was terrible and I have no interest in seeing something similar. But, I can't help but feel… well, I miss my mom, too." He quickly added, "I'm really happy for you, Yuri. You deserved to meet her. It isn't fair that I had mine for ten years but you only had yours for six months."

Yuri shook his head with a slight smile. "You idiot. Don't worry about offending me; of course you'd want to see yours again, too."

Flynn smiled, relieved that Yuri wasn't mad at him for being petty. "And you know… my mom loved you like a son as well."

"Yeah. I know. Your mom was really great, and I appreciate everything she did for me. It was nice to meet my own, though."

"Of course, I wasn't trying to say mine should be good enough for you. Just, I heard you say something about not having a family before you found all your friends. You know, you're practically a Scifo as far as I'm concerned."

Yuri snorted. "Why would I want that? Yuri Scifo? That sounds dumb. What's with the C standing in for an H anyway?" The brief eye contact explained his true feelings on the matter loud and clear.

"You're ok with everything then? I can only imagine that meeting your mother for the first time would be overwhelming."

"Really, I'm fine." In the two months since getting out, any lingering emotional issues he had over his mother were settled. "There are a few things I wish I'd had time to ask her, but if I'd stuck around talking about everything, I wouldn't be coming back until next year."

Flynn scooted forward on his seat. "Things like what?"

"Like… well, I know she got sick, but I've never really known the circumstances behind that."

Flynn smiled, which wasn't the reaction Yuri expected to saying he was sad he didn't know how his mom died. "I have good news," Flynn said. "I did a little research for you in the castle archives."

"What kind?"

"Well, actually Lady Estellise did most of the research… anyway, I'm pretty sure I can answer your question. In the summer after you were born, there was an outbreak of cholera in Zaphias. A lot of people in the lower quarter died. I think it's pretty likely it took her life as well."

"Oh." He couldn't think of anything to say. He was glad to know, but also it seemed weird to get excited when talking about his dead mother. "Not necessarily, though, right? She just said she got sick, and I'm sure people had more than just that disease that summer."

"That's what I thought, but Lady Estellise said it made the most sense. Usually if there's a disease in a house, a baby would be most likely to catch it and die, since their immune systems are weaker. Cholera is only spread through contaminated water, though, so as long as she nursed you, you would have been fine even while she was deathly ill."

Yuri nodded slowly. "So she was saving my life even while she was dying. I really owe her a lot. I owe her everything, actually. Same deal with you, I suppose?"

Flynn shrugged. "I don't think either of my parents had the disease, but in general. Infants that were fed formula that might have had contaminated water would have likely died that summer. We were lucky."

"So did your research say where victims of the outbreak are buried?"

Flynn's face fell. "Ah… actually, yes. It said the bodies of the victims were burned, and the remains buried in a mass grave. There's a plaque in the cemetery; I checked."

Yuri sighed at his knees. That stupid bird across the road had started singing. "She deserved better."

"Yeah."

"You know she was younger than Estelle? It's weird to think about. I don't feel nearly old enough to be a dad yet, but if she hadn't died, she'd already be the mother of a five year old by my age. She seemed so much more mature than I was at eighteen."

"I don't know if you were a good standard of average maturity."

Yuri kicked him again.

"Stop that. Anyway, I suppose having a kid can do that to you. It forces you to grow up."

"I'm really proud of her. I hope she knows that."

"I'm sure she does."

"She said she wanted to meet you, by the way. Not sure what that says about her judgement, but…"

Flynn punched his knee.

Yuri listened to the bird sing for almost a full minutes before he brought the next subject up. "She said some other things, too. I don't remember exactly how she phrased it, but I've been thinking about that night at Aurnion. Remember?"

"Of course," Flynn said carefully, eyeing him questioningly. "What about it?"

"We said we were on different paths, but that we would always be friends despite that. I've been thinking lately, but maybe that whole view is wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"We see ourself as walking on separate paths, right? Like we were together as kids, and then we hit a fork and we're going separate ways now. Mom said she didn't see lives as being on paths of defined light and dark. And you know, I think she's right. If you were really on a 'path', then doing the lawful thing would be your only option."

Flynn frowned, not fully embracing the concept yet. "But it is my only option. As the commandant, I have to-"

"No, it's the option you consistently choose. The option to be a massive dick is also always there. You and I are on the same path, we're just making different choices along the way. I think people like Alexei happen when they think they'd chosen the path of being a righteous saviour, and therefor anything they choose along the way is all part of the righteous saviour path. Alexei never realized he kept picking the massive dick options, because he didn't believe those options were there."

Flynn nodded, confusion fading from his face. "I think I see what you're getting at. If we limit our thinking to a narrow path of good or evil, we blind ourselves to the potentials we could become. Someone might do horrendous things but justify it because they think they're on the 'good person' path. Likewise, someone could do noble things but brush them aside because they think they're on the 'shady person' path." He gave Yuri a pointed look.

Yuri was good at ignoring Flynn's looks. "So, let's stop thinking of ourselves as following different paths. We're on the same broad path leading to a brighter tomorrow, and even if we handle different burdens along the way, we'll walk it together."

"I think I like that."

Yuri hopped down from the windowsill. "I want to check out that plaque."

"Do you want me to come?"

"Of course I do. Maybe you guys never met, but you shared your mom with me, so I think I can share mine with you. She'd love you, I bet. She kept nagging me about tying my shoes properly."

"See! She agrees with me!"

"That's why I said you guys would get along."

Yuri led Flynn down the stairs, still grinning. Wherever Mom was now, he hoped she was smiling too.


End file.
